Video Interview, Tom Petrillo and Bill Reamy, June 6, 2012

KEVIN INDOVINO: These are from my checks a week ago.

Just give us the correct spelling

of your first and last name.

WILLIAM REAMY: First name is William, W-I-L-L-I-A-M.

Last name is Reamy, R-E-A-M as in music, Y.

KEVIN INDOVINO: And, can I call you Bill?

WILLIAM REAMY: Yes.

KEVIN INDOVINO: When I put your name on a screen,

what particular title would like me to put under it?

Psychologist, psychiatrist?

Do you want a title like that?

WILLIAM REAMY: Well, you could put psychiatrist

or you could put MD after my name.

Please don't use psychologist.

I'm not a psychologist, and I've never taken

a psychology course in my life.

KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.

And Tom, first thing how do you want to be identified?

And correct spelling of first and last name?

TOM PETRILLO: Then for me it's Tom, T-O-M Petrillo,

P-E-T-R-I-L-L-O, attorney.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Attorney.

OK.

Simply just attorney?

Not attorney at law?

TOM PETRILLO: That's fine.

WILLIAM REAMY: Yeah, so you could use M.D. And then

psychiatrist underneath.

KEVIN INDOVINO: So yeah, Bill, let's start with you first.

General question, because in the 1970s

you were attending the U of R?

Was that correct?

Or no, you came to Strong for residency?

WILLIAM REAMY: I came to Strong for my psychiatric residency

late June of 1973.

And I'd like to say that back then being gay

was illegal, immoral, and sick.

And now it's only immoral.

And it's not even immoral any more

in certain places, like the church where

Tom and I got married.

KEVIN INDOVINO: So let's talk about life

as a gay man in the 1970s.

What was it like?

Two things, where were you socializing?

But more so, where were you finding information

about being gay?

WILLIAM REAMY: Let me think about that.

Are you talking about--

KEVIN INDOVINO: It was unfair for me

to ask you two different questions all in one.

Just talk to me about being a gay man in the 1970s.

What was it like?

WILLIAM REAMY: Scary.

I was feeling very closeted back then and being--

training for the medical profession,

I was very, very protective of my privacy.

I worried a lot about people finding out.

So it was very constricting back then.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Being at the university

at the time that the Gay Liberation Front was also

pretty much getting started up, did

you get involved with the GLF at all?

WILLIAM REAMY: No, not really.

When I came to Rochester, I started

into my psychiatric residency which was very intense.

So to some extent I was very oblivious to the outside world.

Trying to socialize was difficult.

I think I came to Rochester with a gay guy that

told me about a couple of bars in the area.

And eventually I learned about the Gay Alliance

and about the Empty Closet, which

I thought was a really neat name for a newspaper.

But in Rochester basically, you met people

by meeting other people.

There really weren't places to go to meet people.

And going to a bar was really a place where you drank.

You really, really couldn't meet people there.

And that was a little scary.

After all, Tom will tell you about that about police raids

at bars.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Talk to me about residency

in the field of psychiatry as a gay man

where this was a view that still designated homosexuality

as an illness.

WILLIAM REAMY: Well, to tell you about my residency at Strong,

I really have to start out in Richmond, Virginia, which

is where I did my medical school training and my internship.

And I kind of had the idea when I came to Rochester

that in some ways Rochester was actually

more conservative than Richmond, Virginia was.

I'd had a rather frightening experience.

After I was accepted for my residency up here in Rochester,

I got a call from the people at the Department of Psychiatry

saying they wanted me to come up and talk again,

because someone had called them up

and told them that I was gay, and that I had caused a patient

to commit suicide.

And it was a person who I had dated and had

stopped dating because they found him

to be a rather angry person.

So I came up to Rochester and I said to them, "Well, I am gay.

But I didn't cause my patient to commit suicide."

And they said, "Fine.

You're welcome to go through the residency here,

but don't tell anyone else in the department

about your being gay, because they may not feel the same

about it as the way we did."

So they kind of set the tone for my being up here.

To his credit, the chairman of the Department

of Psychiatry at the Medical College of Virginia

said to me, "Well, if they don't want to take you,

you're welcome down here."

So I did have the advantage of having someone down in Richmond

who was supportive.

So I did my residency.

And I didn't talk about things.

So there really was no one who would give me

guidance about how to deal with gay patients.

It's not that there was any sort of malevolence involved.

I didn't really hear anyone making bad comments.

But it reminded me a bit of a cartoon

I once saw in Christopher Street magazine

where there's a little boy kneeling by the side of the bed

saying his prayers, saying "And God bless Uncle

Jack and his roommate Bill, whom we don't talk about."

So it's not that people were saying bad things,

but there really was no one around to affirm

me and my personhood or to counteract

the opinion of myself that I had as a result of what psychiatry

around me was saying.

And I think it certainly did affect my ability

to deal with gay patients.

Because it made it more difficult for me

to affirm them and help them feel comfortable

about themselves.

KEVIN INDOVINO: And we'll touch upon that just a little bit

more.

Expand on it a little bit.

Here you are, a gay man who's a psychiatrist treating clients,

who probably some are coming to you because of their issues

with being gay.

You still have on the books that EMS classifications of gayness

being a mental illness.

How did you deal with all of that?

Was there a conflict of interest in there at all?

WILLIAM REAMY: Well, the DSM II, which

is what we went by when I first came to Rochester,

was a very general listing of mental disorders.

It had not become the Bible that the DSM III and the DSM IV

had become later on.

Homosexuality was listed under the perversions.

It was not a personality disorder.

But it was lumped in with the personality disorders.

I even looked it up in my old DSM II last night.

It was code 302.0.

That was homosexuality.

Basically perversions were anything that for the object

of which was not vaginal intercourse.

So anything except the missionary position

was a perversion, basically.

What struck me is that the diagnosis really

concentrated only on sex.

It said nothing about affection, or caring, or love,

which is entirely different from the way we understand it today.

So it was basically a physical type diagnosis.

So I basically just ignored that diagnosis.

I never diagnosed anyone as being homosexual.

I didn't see any need for it.

I could diagnose people as being depressed or anxious.

For myself, as a psychiatrist, there was this conflict

of how could I be a psychiatrist if I

had a psychiatric disorder, if I were sick?

And that kind of stuck in the back of my head.

There were a few people who kind of helped me out with that.

A friend that I knew from Philadelphia who said, "Oh no,

I know plenty of gay psychiatrists."

And the chairman of the Department

of Psychiatry at the Medical College of Virginia

who talked more about sexuality than anyone

at the University of Rochester did,

and who was very supportive.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Just for my own reference,

when was the DSM II implemented?

Do you remember?

WILLIAM REAMY: The DSM II?

A long time ago.

When I started medical school in 1968,

the DSM II was already in existence.

KEVIN INDOVINO: I got to do a little research on that, then.

WILLIAM REAMY: There was a DSM I before that.

but I don't know when it was revised.

KEVIN INDOVINO: And then eventually there

was a three and a four.

WILLIAM REAMY: That's correct.

That's correct.

KEVIN INDOVINO: You already kind of touched upon this,

but I just kind of want to ask again.

About your residence at Strong, homosexuality really

wasn't talked very much about.

WILLIAM REAMY: No, it really wasn't talked much about.

I had the feeling that people really didn't understand it,

did not understand the gay culture,

had stereotyped ideas about homosexuality.

I can give you a couple of examples.

I was looking through a summary that a resident

had written about a patient who was in a lesbian relationship.

And one of his comments was she literally

wore the pants in the family.

And I thought that was kind of a stereotyped idea

of gay relationships.

Another experience I had was the residents

would regularly get together at the home

of a rather esteemed psychiatrist and professor

to discuss various works of Freud.

And someone had remarked that they had heard a radio

program featuring gay music.

Back in those days, there was a program

on Thursday nights entitled Green Thursday.

And the professor remarked, "what in the world

is gay music?"

and kind of poopooed it.

And I thought it meant he really didn't

understand that there is this whole world over there,

and that there were other people who

think about things in a certain way

and have a certain affiliation.

So I think it was more ignorance than malevolence.

KEVIN INDOVINO: And obviously, without revealing names

or any specific case, but when a client would come to you

and it really was coming down to the issue

that he or she was having problems with their gayness,

how did you counsel those people?

What were you telling them?

WILLIAM REAMY: Well, when I was a resident,

no one came to me telling me that they were

having problems with being gay.

And I think that came later on, when I was in private practice

and was really more comfortable with myself.

I think back in those days, people just

didn't talk to psychiatrists that much about it.

I had one patient who was a female to male transsexual.

And he and I had some very good conversations.

And it was not difficult talking about that at all.

As a matter of fact, one of my supervisors

was just astounded that I wasn't floored by that.

Like, I should have been.

KEVIN INDOVINO: When did you see things starting

to change in regards to attitudes within the psychiatry

field toward what homosexuality really is?

WILLIAM REAMY: Well, I think it was a very gradual thing.

Of course there was the removal of homosexuality from the DSM.

And that would have been in December of 1973.

I don't think there was much of a change in attitudes

back then.

And there were a lot of people who said well, this

is just a political thing.

You don't change a diagnosis by a vote of the membership.

Nevertheless, the majority of the members of the American

Psychiatric Association voted to remove it from the list.

Probably, I would not say that there was a change in attitudes

until the early eighties gradually becoming greater

and greater and greater.

I suspect that this had something

to do at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic and gay people

being more in the news.

KEVIN INDOVINO: I want to talk a little bit more on the DSM

because I don't want to just brush over it.

WILLIAM REAMY: OK.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Can you talk to me about really

how significant it was for the DSM designation

to be taken off the books?

WILLIAM REAMY: Well, I think it was

very significant for gay people no longer to be stigmatized.

As I said, it was a gradual process.

The fact that it was taken off the books

didn't mean that there weren't psychiatrists who still kept it

in their minds as a diagnosis and who

were absolutely convinced that gay people were

stunted in their development.

Also there remained on the books for a short period of time

the diagnosis of ego-dystonic homosexuality.

Ego-dystonic just means I don't like the way I am.

So it was if you were gay, but you were

uncomfortable with being gay.

I remember once I had finished my residency,

but I was working for another agency,

I interviewed a patient.

I evaluated the patient who had already been seen

by a non-physicianed counselor.

The counselor had written down a diagnosis

of ego-dystonic homosexuality.

I wrote in my notes yes, this man is homosexual.

But there's nothing ego dystonic about it.

He's perfectly comfortable with it.

People were looking for diagnoses.

That would have been in the late seventies early eighties.

KEVIN INDOVINO: You've made an interesting point there.

People looking for a diagnosis, trying

to somehow pick an answer about why people are gay.

Is that still true today?

Are they still trying to figure it out ?

Or how have things changed?

WILLIAM REAMY: Well, I think people are much looser about it

today.

I don't think people are really looking

for reasons at this point.

There is curiosity about it.

There is research.

There's been research into whether there's

a genetic basis for being gay.

But for the most part, people are a lot more

relaxed about it.

KEVIN INDOVINO: At some point you

eventually started seeking out gay pyschiatrist groups.

Or did you even try to form one?

WILLIAM REAMY: Well, I was very lonely

and I would have loved to have met other gay psychiatrists.

Not that there weren't others in Rochester,

but they really, really had no interest in affiliating.

There were a couple of times when I put out notices

or I put out--

I don't know what paper it was.

Maybe it was the Empty Closet trying to form a group,

but I couldn't get people to come together.

Eventually, I did find a group.

The one that eventually became the Association

of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists,

which formed through the American Psychiatric

Association.

I've got to be careful not to say APA,

because the psychologists have their American Psychological

Association.

In probably 1976, I was feeling very much alone.

I went back to Washington, DC.

I grew up in that area.

I was visiting, and I called Franklin Kameny.

Franklin Kameny was the co-founder of the Washington

Mattachine Society.

Franklin Kameny was also one of the people who

organized a takeover of the APA meeting in Washington in 1971,

and kind of co-opted the microphone, which eventually

led two years later to the repeal of homosexuality

as a diagnosis.

He was a rather irascible type person,

not prone to soft emotions.

But I asked to talk with him.

And I actually went to his place and I told him

that I was seeking other groups of psychiatrists.

And he said, "Well, I know of some people I

can put into contact with you."

It seemed that there were groups of gay psychiatrists

who had met informally at APA meetings,

would get together in bars, would talk to each other.

They referred to themselves as the GayPA.

And so I went to my first APA meeting in Toronto and 1977

and met up with some of these people.

And the group eventually was formalized the next year

in Atlanta, Georgia.

It had a long title to begin with,

but it eventually became the AGLP, the Association of Gay

and Lesbian Psychiatrists.

And so that played a strong role in helping me feel better

about myself, being affiliated with a group

of intelligent normal gay people who were interested in not only

providing support, but in doing serious research

and also organizing within the APA.

KEVIN INDOVINO: I was going to ask you

after attending the meetings like that

and finding a gay psychiatry support group, what

did you bring back with you to Rochester that you could then

share within your own residency or your own practice?

What impact did it have on you and your practice?

WILLIAM REAMY: I was no longer resident at that time.

And I think the impact it had on me

was greater confidence in myself and as a gay person.

And eventually I think it helped me to work better

with gay patients because I could exude that confidence

and help them feel better about themselves.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Tom, before you fall asleep there,

we'll go over to you.

TOM PETRILLO: I learned some things I didn't know.

KEVIN INDOVINO: You talk a lot about the mental health

field the journey of gayness through that.

The whole realm of things legally that gay people

have to deal with for decades.

I don't know where to start actually.

Let's just start very generally.

What initially- and I know some of these are still actually

issues - but as a gay person, what are some of those legal

issues that they're faced with in their daily lives,

in their relationships, estates planning, all of that.

Just describe some of the biggest challenges--

TOM PETRILLO: Are you talking about now

or starting the sixties going--

KEVIN INDOVINO: Starting in the sixties.

Yeah, we'll work back and bring it up to today.

TOM PETRILLO: In the sixties and seventies,

the law did not reflect the nuances of a gay relationship.

For example, if two people lived together

in a long term relationship, they

were treated as "business partners."

If something happened to the relationship--

and I can tell you some very interesting stories about that

if you'd like them--

the court would say no, the fact that there

is affection, the fact that there

is a different type of relationship

is totally irrelevant.

This is a business relationship.

And that's how assets would be distributed.

That's how a relationship would be dissolved.

In the estate area, things became more difficult

than if you were in a heterosexual relationship

because there was always the threat--

and it occurred several times with clients of mine--

where one partner would die, leave everything

to the other partner, as we would expect.

And then a family member would step in and challenge the will.

And the theory that they used back in particularly

in the late sixties, seventies, and even early eighties was

one of the ways you could set aside someone's will

is to show undue influence.

And there were some judges who took

the-- around the state-- who took

the position that the very nature

of this sexual relationship was in and of itself

proof of undue influence.

So that there were times when wills were set aside.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Try not to rub your shoes together.

I know you're doing it subconsciously,

but the microphone might be picking it up.

I'm sorry I interrupted you.

Did you have more to say on that?

Good.

Before we get into the way things

are now, I'm going to examine a little bit more

about the sixties and seventies and where things were at.

In your practice back then, you were

dealing with some police harassment, police raids,

harassment, situations with gay people.

Were you dealing with them as clients or were you

dealing with mostly the police department?

TOM PETRILLO: Both.

Initially, when I graduated in law school in 1965,

I became an attorney in the City Law Office

that's the chief law department for the City of Rochester.

And one of my tasks was to be a liaison with the police

department.

And that was partly because so many

of the things that went on with legal disputes

involved the police.

They could be witnesses, they could be parties to it.

And so I would deal with the police

on a fairly regular basis.

And through that, I learned some very interesting things.

I guess I was very naive.

I remember being in a meeting when there was probably

four or five policemen.

And when you get that number together,

they all talk, talk, talk about what's going on.

And I picked up something about a raid that had taken place.

And I curious.

And I asked what they were talking about.

And they told me about a raid that

had taken place at a bar on Stone Street here in the city.

And I pressed them for information.

And I admit I was being a bit devious.

I acted like I was really interested.

Tell me all about it.

I'd love to know.

And they told me how they had raided this bar

and that these homos and queers had gone running,

and how they had threatened to arrest the couple.

And they had told them well, you could avoid arrest

if you give us a little oral sex here today.

That had taken place.

And they were talking about how funny that was

and how great it was.

And I remember saying to them well,

"Are you really comfortable with that?

Aren't you breaking the law?"

And they all laughed.

And they thought I was joking.

And they said, "You're so naive."

And that was the beginning of my understanding

of how the police were acting at that time.

I was uncomfortable with it.

And I went to my boss who was the corporation

counselor of the city.

And I told him about it.

He seemed concerned about it too.

He said he would talk to the police chief.

That was William Lombard.

And about a week later he got back to me

and he said "Back off.

You need those police to be cooperative.

If you're going to try your cases, if you're

going to use them as witnesses.

Back off.

The chief says these are not sanctioned raids,

but his guys have to let off a little steam once in a while."

So that was what I was told as to that issue.

KEVIN INDOVINO: And obviously at this time

you're not an out gay man.

TOM PETRILLO: At this time, I was not--

No, I should tell you.

If you asked me in the sixties or fifties, sixties, seventies,

I would have laughed if you thought I might someday become

part of the gay community.

I did not know I was gay at that time.

It wasn't until late seventies that I had any clue

that I might be gay.

So I was seeing this really, from the point

of view of a straight person.

And probably had I identified myself as gay,

I might have tried to do more, but I was told to back off.

The city was just coming off of dealing with the riots the year

before and there were all kinds of issues going on.

So I left it alone.

I left after two years, went into private practice.

And then my dealing with issues was totally different.

I was dealing from the point of view of protecting a client.

KEVIN INDOVINO: So then you got into private practice.

Back in the late sixties, early seventies,

were you starting to get involved in gay related cases?

TOM PETRILLO: I have been in private practice

no more than a few months, and I had a case come into me.

And it was two women, I believe.

And one had died.

They had been together twenty years, something like that.

And the family had barred the surviving partner

from the funeral home and from the service.

The newspaper said it was a private service

and they had someone at the door of the funeral home

to make sure she did not come in.

And she came to me and said the funeral

is going to be in two days.

What can I do?

In truth, under the law, she could do nothing.

I called the funeral director to see

if she could at least come in after hours and pay a visit.

I talked to a member of the family

who I thought might be a little more cooperative

than the elderly parents.

This was a younger sibling.

No one was interested in doing anything about it.

So what we did was we formulated a different way to handle this.

I said hold your own funeral.

So she put in a notice in the newspaper

that there would be a funeral service on a particular day.

And then all of the friends were able to come

and able to grieve together.

But there wasn't a legal solution.

It wasn't more than six or eight months after that,

I had the second case come in to me related to a gay issue.

And it was a couple that one of the partners

was in the hospital.

Had serious surgery, was not doing very well.

But the family again had barred the other partner

from going into the hospital.

They told the hospital staff this person was not

to be admitted.

And the hospital staff agreed to that.

And they were very careful not to let this person in.

I call the hospital.

I try to negotiate with them.

Got nowhere.

Tried to call the family.

They weren't even interested in talking about it.

So I called the surgeon who had performed the surgery.

And I put it in terms of you want your patient to get better

don't you?

Well, don't you think that relationship means something

to them.

That maybe that person would heal

better if they knew their partner was with them.

And interestingly enough, it was a woman physician, surgeon.

And she said, "You're right."

She said, "I will be at the hospital."

She gave me a time and place.

"Have your client there."

But we're not to tell anybody.

And so my client got in to see the partner.

KEVIN INDOVINO: When did you start seeing things change?

But I want to ask it differently.

When did you start making things change?

TOM PETRILLO: Well, there were disputes

that arose with my clients in the estate area.

Disputes that arose with my clients

over relationships that had gone sour and had to be dissolved.

And that caused me to do some creative thinking of how

to draft wills for people, how to put together

property agreements for people.

And finally, I came to the conclusion

that you could do some things that would normally not

be permitted if you carefully drafted documents

for a gay, lesbian, or bisexual person.

A will that I would draw for a gay client for example,

would look nothing like what I would

draw for a straight client.

Totally different protective provisions in there.

And if somebody looked at it, they wonder why the heck

some of those provisions were in there.

They are there for a purpose.

And a couple of times it was challenged

and we were successful.

The same way with property agreements.

Couples were getting together, buying houses together,

and then down the line things go sour

and you try to dispose of the issues.

Terrible situation, business partnership.

But you could define your relationship

in agreements property agreements.

You could set out the rules that were

to be used if the relationship were to be dissolved.

And so I created those kinds of documents.

And matter of fact GAGV sponsored a couple of seminars

that I spoke to people about the need for these specialized

provisions.

I also became a resource for other lawyers.

They would call me and say, "I have a good client.

This is the situation.

What should I do?

I'm doing a will for them.

Any special things I should provide?"

And I would then try to educate them.

And those two things I think were important.

KEVIN INDOVINO: You also got involved in some employment

cases, people being fired.

TOM PETRILLO: Yes.

One that I can think of in particular

involves our old friend Eastman Kodak.

I had a man who was in his early fifties.

He had been with Kodak a good twenty-five years.

Yeah, twenty-five years.

He was in research.

And doing some very sophisticated work

and research on new photographic techniques.

He had received yearly, very glowing positive reports.

He had also received some awards within Kodak for his work.

And this resulted in a promotion.

The problem with the promotion was he now had a new boss.

And within a couple of weeks, his new boss said to him,

"Are you one of those fairies?"

And he responded by saying, "My personal life

is really no one's business."

He was fired within a week.

Now New York was an appointment at will state, and it still is.

And you could fire someone for any reason you wanted.

Being gay or having a sexual orientation of any kind

was not a protected class.

So there was nothing to do that.

I called Kodak's chief attorney, chief counsel.

And we talked about it.

He said it was a terrible, terrible situation,

should never have happened, blah, blah, blah.

But, he said "If I allow this person to return to work,

it will set a dangerous precedent.

Fired people then can try to get their jobs back.

And if we set that precedent--" we had a bit of a discussion.

And my client never returned to work there.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Can you kind of put it

in context for me about what year this was?

TOM PETRILLO: That would have been in mid-seventies.

A similar case I thought it was going

to be easier, because the client came in and said they'd

been fired.

Somebody had made some anti-gay remarks

and he responded to them.

And they fired him.

But he was covered by a union.

So I expected that all we needed to do

was to charge up the union to protect him.

The union would not protect him.

I thought they would at least put forth some possible claims

on his behalf.

They weren't even willing to do that.

They weren't interested in even talking to him or to me

about it.

So he did not regain his--

KEVIN INDOVINO: So eventually things changed at those places.

TOM PETRILLO: It was like that in the seventies

and early eighties.

KEVIN INDOVINO: I mentioned interviewing Gordon Urlacher

earlier.

You had a chance to work with him?

TOM PETRILLO: As a private attorney,

occasionally would have some contact with the police, yes.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Him being the quote, unquote "police liaison"

for the LGBT community, what were your impressions of him

and the things he was trying to do?

TOM PETRILLO: My impression was that he

tried very hard to change the tone of things.

And when you change the tone of things at the top,

things filter down.

And I do think that just being the liaison

had a lot to do with some changing

attitudes within the police department, that later on you

saw come to fruition.

KEVIN INDOVINO: So let's move thirty, forty years ahead here.

Yeah, we got gay marriage passed here in New York state.

But there's still a lot of legal challenges out there

that need to be addressed.

Can you talk to me about some of the things

that still particularly in federal level again,

estate planning, health care, all that stuff.

We're not out of the water yet.

TOM PETRILLO: No.

I would be happy to address that,

but I would like to go back if I may and you asked about areas

difficult for gay people.

Custody issues, estate issues.

I talked about the estate issues.

Custody issues became dueling points for lawyers.

The threat that you're going to tell

the court, the threat you're going to tell others

that one of the individuals involved in the marital dispute

was gay or lesbian.

Lesbians in particular were very fearful of losing

custody of their children.

And rightfully so, because there were some cases where

the very nature of their lesbian relationship

was enough for a judge to deny them continued custody.

A lawyer would frequently make that implied threat

to the other lawyer who represented

the gay client, that you really want

to keep these things quiet.

You really don't want everyone to know why you and your wife

broke up do you?

Well then, agree to this financial settlement.

So that was part of it.

The other part of custody came in visitation rights

for gay fathers in particular.

In the early seventies, I recall a case

where a man was accused by his wife of being

not a trustworthy person.

The basis of it was because he was gay and was cheated on her

during the marriage.

And she took the position that because he was untrustful

that he should not have visitation

with the children at all.

She wanted no visitation.

The argument was made this is totally ridiculous.

He has rights.

But the judge, being very old, being

older and very conservative gave him only

scheduled supervised visitation rights with his children.

A very terrible way to try to be a good father to your kids.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Actually, before I jump ahead,

there are two other questions that just came to mind here.

Late seventies you start coming to terms

with your own gay feelings.

But you certainly be open about it, not in the courts.

TOM PETRILLO: Certainly not in the late sixties,

early seventies.

Probably the best way to illustrate

how the courts reacted towards gay lawyers

was to tell you about a particular case.

I didn't know the person well at all.

I didn't know they were even a gay lawyer.

But I was in court one day.

There were about thirty-five lawyers.

There was a calendar call in the morning where

everybody shows up, and lawyers are coming in and out.

And it's not unusual for someone to be late.

And they just call the case at the end.

They call this particular case, the lawyer wasn't there.

And he showed up a little later perfectly

normal acceptable procedure.

And the judge greeted him with "Mr. So-and-so,

were you out late last night?

Were you out with the boys?"

And everybody in the courtroom just broke up and laughed.

And he tried to maintain some dignity.

But obviously, it was a terrible situation.

He later left town.

He later moved out of town.

I understand he moved to the Midwest.

That kind of overt anti-gay attitude was not that common.

But there was a general understanding

that it's best if the court didn't see you as a gay lawyer.

KEVIN INDOVINO: (unintelligible).

You at some point became the lawyer for the gay community.

And quite a lot of notoriety about it.

If you were gay and you had a legal problem,

you had to go see Tom Petrillo.

Talk to me about how did that come about, but also want

drove you to be there for the gay community?

TOM PETRILLO: Initially I saw it as just representing

people who needed help and who were being treated terribly

and unfairly.

Later on it became an issue of I was gay,

and I wanted to be sure I helped protect the gay community.

But it became word of mouth sort of thing.

One person would tell another go see Tom Petrillo.

And that really generated a lot of people.

But there was also one individual.

I don't know if you've heard the name Tony Green.

Tony Green was everybody's gay friend.

He was the bartender at the Forum.

And one day I get--

KEVIN INDOVINO: (unintelligible) I'm going to correct you there.

We're going to take it back.

Tony Green was the bartender at Friar's.

TOM PETRILLO: Friar's.

I'm sorry.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Let's just start that over.

TOM PETRILLO: Yeah, all right.

Tony Green was everybody's friend who was a bartender

at Friar's.

And he, for some reason, he was the kind of person everybody

told their problems to.

He knew everybody in the gay community

and what their problems were.

And one day I find on my appointment schedule,

there's someone by the name of Jim Smith on my ledger to see.

And he came in.

I didn't know who he was.

And he outlined this legal problem.

Really, I couldn't quite understand

why he felt he needed a lawyer.

So we talked about it.

And then he said "I'm really not.

I'm really Tony Green."

He said, "And I wanted to see how

you would treat me because I understand you

treat gay people very well."

And he said, "I frequently find myself

at a loss to know who to tell people to come to see."

And Tony Green referred a lot of gay people to me.

We became good friends later on.

And so that is how my practice grew.

The seminars at GAGV--

there were a lot of people who were there,

and who understood that I knew some

of the nuances of how you can get around

some of the legal provisions.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Which brings up another question

that you can address.

With the whole AIDS epidemic hitting us,

a lot of legal issues came rising from that, particularly

against estate planning, wills, and all that stuff.

Talk to me about the AIDS pandemic

and how the legal issues even got even more complex.

TOM PETRILLO: One issue comes to mind.

I had a client who needed surgery

at one of the hospitals.

And they were refusing to operate on him because they

didn't have the right protective uniforms,

the protective covering thing needed.

And they were afraid to do the surgery without this.

It was just a total lack of understanding.

But that was everybody's lack of understanding

in the gay community as well as the straight community.

Issues like that would come up from time to time.

People would be thrown out of their apartments

because they were living together with another man

and someone would assume they're gay

and the landlord didn't want them in their apartment.

Who knows what it would leave behind when they left.

This sort of issue.

KEVIN INDOVINO: (unintelligible)

TOM PETRILLO: You can hear it.

Sorry.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Let me just look over my notes here.

(unintelligible).

WILLIAM REAMY: I believe that one

of the people who couldn't get surgery

was someone you referred to me.

TOM PETRILLO: Yes.

From time to time, we would refer clients back and back

and forth.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Sure.

So let's jump to today.