s2, e1: are you a homosexual?- 70s queer activist housing collectives
episode details
Alrighty everyone, we’re back with season two. Thank you so much for all your patience!
For folks who listened to season one, welcome back. For those that are new, we’re Queering the District Podcast, where we dive into the history of Queer third places in Washington, D.C. Each season is focused on one “type” of third place.
This season we are going to explore houses and homes as a third place. We’ll be diving into how Queer folks have used personal and communal homes to party, create art, survive, advocate, and more!
In this episode, we’ll be exploring the rise of D.C. Queer political communes in the early 1970s. Whether it was a home full of typing lesbian separatists or a row house filled to the brim with young gay political hopefuls, homes were the heart of Queer activism in the early 70s.
Special thanks to the Rainbow History Project, the DC Public Library, and the countless other academics and historians, whether featured in these episodes or not, who helped inspire and guide us through this process.
Audio editing by Abby Stuckrath and Julia Hay
You can find a full transcript below or in this pdf. You can also find works cited and in-text citations for the episode in this pdf.
transcript
[Queering the District Podcast intro music fades into background]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Alrighty everyone, we’re back with season two. Thank you so much for all your patience!
For folks who listened to season one, welcome back! For those that are new, we’re Queering the District Podcast, where we dive into the history of Queer third places in Washington, D.C.! Each season is focused on one “type” of third place, with season one focused on bars.
This season we are going to explore houses and homes as a third place. We’ll be diving into how Queer folks have used personal and communal homes to party, create art, survive, advocate, and more!
If you were a big fan of season one, you can expect much of the same: immersive stories, D.C. specific Queer history, and voices across the community sharing the memories and places that were formative to the community they've built in the District. This season, with homes being the focus, you can expect even more intimate and personal stories. We feel so lucky to help tell stories that will make you full-body laugh, buzz with joy, and, at times, shed a tear or two.
While there will be a lot of parallels to last season, the format of this year's season will look a little different. In season one, we had one historical episode followed by an after hours episode followed by another historical, and so on and so forth, for a total of ten episodes. This season, we'll have eight historical episodes coming out, with one releasing every Wednesday.
But don’t worry, if you loved the video episodes last year, we'll have more news about some season two video episodes in the upcoming months.
This week is our first episode, and we’ll be exploring the rise of D.C. Queer political communes in the early 70s. Whether it was a home full of typing lesbian separatists or a row house filled to the brim with young gay political hopefuls, homes were the heart of Queer activism in the early 70s.
So, without further ado, we begin, as many gay afternoons do, with an incoming call.
[Queering the District Podcast intro music fades out]
[Phone rings three times]
[Groovy music plays then fades into background]
BRIAN MILLER: They had sort of an information phone service. These guys told the phone company that they wanted to be listed as the Gay Liberation House.
[Phone rings, voice answers “Hello?”]
People would, you know, see that or know that number and call. And they had questions about ‘How can I meet people?’ and “Do you have group meetings?” And they also dispensed medical information, but they did the best they could and tried to guide people.
[Phones ring continuously]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Whether there were phones ringing off the hook, or tens of people sleeping on their basement floor after a protest, the house at 1620 S St NW was a place where Queers lived, learned, and partied in resistance together.
Brian Miller was one of the many who walked through its doors.
He wrote the book, Here Because We’re Queer: Inside the Gay Liberation Front of Washington, D.C. in which he documented the rise of Queer communes in the heyday of the gay rights movement–the early 70s.
[Groovy music fades out]
Brian came to D.C. in 1969 in search of freedom and community.
BRIAN MILLER: I was eager to enter a gay life.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Brian landed in the District just in time to witness the city's transition away from buttoned up gay politics to rambunctiously chaotic Queer activism.
In the late 60s to early 70s, the United States saw a shift within its younger generation. They no longer sought social change, but social revolution. Whether they were influenced by the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War, or both, young activists began to work towards a world that valued equity and unity. Separate groups with distinct ideologies and goals formed across the Women’s Rights Movement, the Red Power Movement, the Gay Rights movement, and the Black Power movement, but they often worked alongside each other, building informal collectives of people seeking peace and equality—no registration required.
These alliances were often highly surveilled by the government and more often than not short-lived.
Nonetheless, the early 70s was a unique period of organizing, one in which plays an extremely essential role in understanding Queer politics in D.C.
So, what sparked this newfound Queer uprising? For that, we have to travel to Christopher Street in New York City.
[Subway cars squeaking and passing by]
[Retro funk music plays in the background]
PHIL PANNELL: The New York City police had been raiding the gay bars in the city and terrorizing the gay community for years, but that person said something else that we had never heard, and that was: the queens are fighting back!
[Audience claps and cheers]
So we in the bonsoir immediately rushed out to get to Stonewall, but as we were running through the streets, you could see all of the gay bars in Greenwich Village were emptying on the way to support the people at Stonewall. And I was active in civil rights and the anti-Vietnam War. But then, being there that night at Stonewall, I realized that I had to be a part of a movement that was dealing with my sexual orientation.
[Audience claps]
And it was at that point where I was able to say that I was as proud of my gayness as I am of my Blackness.
[Audience applauses and cheers]
ABBY STUCKRATH: On June 28th, 1969, Phillip Pannell, a Washingtonian LGBTQ+ activist, and local leader witnessed a defining moment in the modern day gay rights movement: The Stonewall Riots. That evening, one of the most popular gay bars in New York City was raided by local police, and, instead of fleeing, the Queers fought back. The spontaneous riot on Christopher Street prompted several days of street demonstrations, ultimately kickstarting Queer political and social activist groups across the country.
Stonewall was a declaration that the Queer community would no longer be polite, buttoned up protesters. It was a rallying cry to be different and a call for acceptance, not assimilation.
But, it wasn’t the beginning. Not in New York and certainly not in D.C.
[Retro funk music fades out]
The beginnings of D.C.’s Queer political history is largely tied to one man–a former astronomer fired from his job in the federal government for being gay, who later co-founded D.C.’s first gay rights organization: the Mattachine Society of Washington. He is now touted as the Father of the Gay Rights Movement, Dr. Frank Kameny.
NANCY TUCKER: Who else am I going to talk to about gay civil rights but Frank? Nobody else knew anything else. Nobody, no. No one else in D.C. was doing anything except Mattachine.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Nancy Tucker, a native Washingtonian and creator of The Washington Blade, the oldest LGBTQ+ newspaper in the United States, was 21 years old when she joined the Mattachine Society in 1967. Eager to be a part of D.C.’s first gay activist group…
[Door opens, thoughtful guitar music plays]
She found herself in the basement of a church in Capitol Hill, surrounded by some of the earliest gay political activists in D.C.: Eva Freund,
[Crowd talking in the background]
[Chair scraping across floor]
a lesbian feminist who led many of the group's efforts and would later help pass D.C.’s first human rights act; Dr. Lilli Vincez,
[Chair scraping across floor]
legendary host of lesbian house parties, and leader of the first ever gay picket outside of the White House; and, of course, Dr. Frank Kameny.
[Chair scraping across floor]
NANCY TUCKER: Frank, of course, Frank Kameny sat at the top of the oval.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Nancy says she was “shell shocked” at the meeting. Their discussion was serious and meticulously crafted.
[Crowd talking fades out]
NANCY TUCKER: The people in Mattachine were very literate and legalistic, what they were fighting with at that time, legalistic arguments, about whether gays should be allowed to serve in the, in the federal government, serve in the military. Legalistic arguments about male entrapment in various cozy places in the woods in D.C. Those were the two big issues: employment and entrapment.
ABBY STUCKRATH: As we discussed last season, from the 1940s through the 1960s was the Lavender Scare, an era where it was illegal to be gay and serve in the federal government. The argument was that being homosexual made you susceptible to blackmail from communists. So the government would hunt down and investigate federal workers suspected of being gay. In doing so, like Nancy said, the police would surveil popular cruising spots and maliciously catch them in the act. The violent outing and expulsion of Queer individuals in the government is what the Mattachine Society was set out to fix.
Much like their meeting, Frank and Mattachine’s approach to protest had strict rules and regulations.
NANCY TUCKER: Whatever protests were held were rigidly controlled, proper work dress. We went in our circle, oval, whatever, carrying our signs for about an hour. Very neatly lettered signs, very proper, very civil libertarian.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Frank’s reasoning was that he wanted nothing to distract from their message, which was that homosexuality made them no less human and deserving of a good job and life.
[Thoughtful guitar music fades out]
Frank’s leadership and tenacity made him the —
BRIAN MILLER: Go-to guy. If you had a problem with the police, police arrested you on the street for, I don't know, disorderly conduct was the catch all, sort of police charge that, if nothing else came to mind, they could always charge gay people with on the street for doing anything.
[Brian Miller interview clip fades into background]
ABBY STUCKRATH: After Stonewall, gay political groups across the nation started to pop up, but D.C. was already anchored in Frank’s leadership and the Mattachine Society. It wasn’t until the one year anniversary of the New York riots that D.C. Queers began itching for something new.
BRIAN MILLER: So a bunch of people went to New York and, you know, had their lives changed.
[Subway cars passing by, groovy music plays in the background]
[People cheering and chanting “Hey hey, ho ho!”]
[Whistling cheerfully]
You know, their mouths dropped open, because just thousands and thousands of people were in New York marching up Fifth Avenue, I think it was to Central Park and assembling in the park. And it was just this beautiful, peaceful love fest, and everyone was proud, and so on and so forth so. And Frank himself went, and he was like, ‘You know, I've been working for something like this for years,’ and he was, I think, you know, somewhat a little on the bitter side that all his efforts had not drawn much of a interest. But this other thing for Stonewall celebration had, and indeed it had, the Washingtonians came back who had gone up there and said, “We have to start something.”
[Groovy music fades out, subway car passing into the distance]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Riding off this new-found momentum from the marches in New York, gay Washingtonians quickly came together to create the D.C. Gay Liberation Front.
[Funky ‘70s-style music plays in the background]
The group was created to, “Establish a sense of community among gay people, build gay self-awareness, and educate the straight community.”
On June 30, 1970, around 40 people gathered in the basement of the Grace Episocpal Church in Georgetown, to hold its first Gay Liberation Front, aka GLF, meeting. Nancy was one of the few women in the group.
NANCY TUCKER: People sat on the floor, in contrast to what happened with Mattachine, which was a tight little circle of people sitting in folding chairs. In GLF, everybody spread out around this very large room and sat on the floor. I don't think there was anybody except maybe Frank, who was sitting in a chair. And it being a large place, people had to raise their voices in order to be heard by others in the group.
[Group chattering together in the background]
But it was a very exciting time.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Within two months, the amount of attendees doubled. GLF ignited a newfound sense of motivation for the gay community. But this increased presence also meant more chaos.
BRIAN MILLER: The weekly meetings were kind of free-for-alls. Not only young people came, but, you know, drag queens came, older people came. Mattachine people came, they were interested in what this thing was all about. Frank Kameny came. But a lot of young people came, and so they were just sort of unloading all this frustration, all this anger.
[Drums from funky music swells, then music stops]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Their activism followed that same freeform spirit. Deacon McCubbin, an LGBTQ+ activist and owner of the once staple D.C. gay bookstore, Lambda Rising, participated in some of GLF’s pop up protests.
DEACON MCCUBBIN: We did a zap at the University of Maryland.
[Deacon interview clip plays in the background]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Zaps were created by and for gay activism in the early 70s. It was a sudden, rambunctious theatrical protest. It was often done at events with problematic speakers. In Deacon’s case, it was a psychiatrist speaking against homosexuality.
DEACON MCCUBBIN: When he started speaking, we started raising hell and making demands and waving signs and banners and what have you, and basically shut it down.
[Crowds protest, cheer, whistle]
[Deacon chuckles]
ABBY STUCKRATH: GLF had plenty of boisterous protests and political actions. One of my personal favorites from our research is when they created a leaflet that they distributed across town.
[Piece of paper unfolds]
The headline? “Are you a homosexual?”
[Typewriter typing in background, funky music plays lightly]
They wrote: “Probably not. But according to the Kinsey Report, millions and millions of Americans are. The people who gave you this handbill is homosexual. Take a look. We’re human. We’re fed up with being called sick, neurotic, and ‘unnatural.’ We’re tired of being confused with criminals and child-molesters. We are average human beings who live intelligent and often creative lives. We believe we have the right to love in our own way.”
[Typewriter dings, funky music fades out]
One of their zaps became what a historian calls D.C.’s closest equivalent to Stonewall.
After attending the Black Panther Revolutionary’s People Convention in 1970,
[Bell jingles as door opens]
a group of GLFers were denied service at an all-white restaurant near American University's campus.
[Footsteps walking on gravel]
In protest, they returned to the bar later that day with 50 gay men. Upon seeing the group, the owner attacked a Latino man and two Black men in retaliation who were a part of the GLF group.
[Glass smashes to ground, man yells out in pain]
Chaos broke loose, and fighting escalated…
[People fighting, glasses shattering]
…into a “free-for-all” until police arrived, later arresting 12 gay folks…
[Handcuffs click around wrist]
[Police siren as police car drives away]
…who would later become known as the D.C. Twelve.
[Car door slams]
All charges against them were eventually dropped.
GLF’s zaps and political strategy was a stark contrast to the Mattachine Society’s dressed up pickets. Nancy says it was because GLF had different core values.
NANCY TUCKER: They were, just wanted to be liberated, whatever liberated meant to them. And the word liberated meant nothing in Mattachine. Equal meant something in Mattachine. Same as meant something in Mattachine. But liberated, no.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Deacon says that both strategies were necessary. He was a member of GLF and the Gay Activist Alliance, the now longest running LGBTQ organization in the United States. GLF was organized chaos, and the Gay Activist Alliance, like Mattachine, was buttoned up politics.
DEACON MACCUBBIN: I was always of the opinion that there's a whole lot of ways to approach an issue, and one way is to create that kind of loud noise and disruption, and another way is to put on a coat and tie and go meet with representatives. And when you do both, you can accomplish a whole lot more than either one by itself.
ABBY STUCKRATH: What sets GLF apart from the Mattachine Society and the Gay Activist Alliance was that they lived together. Within the same year of its founding, 1970, GLF established a headquarters that served as a communal home on S street, just north of Dupont Circle.
[Upbeat music plays in background]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Seven people moved into the three-storied red brick townhouse, but it had a revolving door of both residents and guests.
It was a hub for well…everything.
BRIAN MILLER: It became sort of a magnet for people who were going to meetings and or going to bars and everything. And they always knew there was, like, usually an open door policy at the GLF house.
[Door opens, person says “Hey come on in.”]
[Door opens, person says “Hello!”]
[Door opens, person says “Hey, how you doing?”]
And people were coming and going during the day a lot of the time, and less so at night. But sometimes they had parties
[Glasses clink together, people cheer]
[Joint is lit, drinks pour into glasses]
and, you know, wild music. And dancing and marijuana and liquor. So it was also a party house, so it was a bit wild.
[Upbeat music fades out]
ABBY STUCKRATH: It was a house where exploration, celebration, and activism chaotically collided.
BRIAN MILLER: They were revolutionary to the extent they didn't believe in hygiene or cleanliness that much.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Walking through the living room you might find a misbehaving cat
[Cat meows]
BRIAN MILLER: That probably didn't use the litter box all the time.
[Footsteps walking upstairs]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Walk up the stairs to sleep in bedrooms with the finest furnishings
[Crackle of record player]
BRIAN MILLER: Just a mattress on the floor, maybe a dresser and a record player, some books and posters on the wall.
[Phones ringing]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Phones ringing off the hook for a program they called the Gay Switchboard.
[Phones ringing]
BRIAN MILLER: People would be on the phone talking about answering questions,
[Phone picked up, voice asks “Hey, how can I help you today?”]
and even answering questions about health issues, and virtually no one there was a doctor or anything so. But, you know, they would try to answer questions and direct people to this clinic and that kind of a thing.
ABBY STUCKRATH: And if you walked to the basement you would find…a makeshift church
[Creaking footsteps going downstairs]
[Glowing music plays in the background]
BRIAN MILLER: There was also always a Sunday service or two, and there was a midweek service.
ABBY STUCKRATH: The Chapel of St. Francis and St. John.
The GLF house was a welcoming place for Gay folks to worship. The sermons held by gay ordained priests followed the Roman Catholic or Espiscopal church format. They even performed musical selections of Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell.
It’s safe to say that the GLF house was multifaceted.
BRIAN MILLER: It was kind of everything to everyone.
ABBY STUCKRATH: The home was also known as a national crash pad for protesters across the country. They would house Gays and activists coming in town for their anti-war rallies. At times, the house would take in gay kids who were kicked out by their families. The GLF commune was a scrappy yet vital resource.
BRIAN MILLER: So, um, someone estimated that at that time, at the high point, as many as 20 people were living in the GLF house. And they had a basement, which was basically wall to wall cots and mattresses on the floor.
ABBY STUCKRATH: In 2019, a Facebook account called “Old Time D.C.” posted a photo of some of the GLF members, including Reggie Haynes, one of the collective’s ordained priests.
One of the comments on the post, was too heartwarming not to share:
It said, “I was homeless at 17 and Reggie Haynes invited me to stay there. Even though I was not gay, he fed me everyday. We had such a great time. I will never forget cabaret dancing down the street singing with the guys. So much fun! Thank you so much Reggie!”
[Glowing music fades out]
This open door policy and atmosphere of unbridled exploration was fundamental to the mission of the GLF house. Brian says they took much inspiration from Carl Whitman's “Gay Manifesto.”
BRIAN MILLER: One of the things he said was, basically, be as gay as possible all the time. Be as feminine as you feel like being. You know, dress up in women's clothing if you felt like. Be obviously gay so the world knows you're gay, and let them be their problem. Be who you are.
ABBY STUCKRATH: This ideology birthed what Brian calls, “Skag Drag.”
BRIAN MILLER: It was not serious drag. It was like having a collection of women's clothing, dresses, hats, purses. You know, this was thrift store stuff. And it was all like, you know, old stuff from the 50s, usually, or earlier. It was just kind of fun, basically. But then, if you took it outside, you were entering an entirely different, somewhat dangerous environment, where people had to deal with it.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Skag drag was a form of cross dressing without trying to come across as a woman. It was an outward expression of their gayness and a small form of protest.
BRIAN MILLER: So I remember walking down 17th Street, once with Jim Farrad, who was like a major firebrand from New York City.
[Punk rock music plays in the background]
And he was like combat boots and a black dress, and you know, a site for sore eyes, and he was with us, so it was like three or four people walking down the street. And I was like, terrified, of course, but he was so fierce that just one look from this guy was like, “You don't want to mess with me.” It's not like he was physically intimidating. He was a very small, thin man, but he was ready at any given moment to enter into a diatribe and a political speech about anything on his mind. You know, gay liberation and the principles of oppression.
[Punk rock music fades out]
ABBY STUCKRATH: The GLF commune was not one of a kind, in fact they were one of many.
BRIAN MILLER: Communes were just popular, and a number, a great number of them existed in Washington, around Washington at the time, in the DuPont Circle area, in Capitol Hill, in Mount Pleasant, especially. There was a number of them, so it was kind of a thing to do. Of course, you could also save a lot of money, and a lot of people were living hand to mouth, or didn't have jobs.
ABBY STUCKRATH: In the late 60s and 70s, multiple political groups found home in rowhouses across the District. The first Black Panther headquarters in D.C. was established in 1970 in an Adams Morgan home. Anti-war communes were littered all across the city as well. Living rooms throughout D.C. became hubs for resources, community solidarity, and political strategy.
When it came to advice on how to organize, the GLF utilized their connection with the Black Panther Party, Dr. Tim Tomasi.
NANCY TUCKER: The Panthers were seen as the adults in these movements. They had been at this longer than the GLF people had been, or the Women's Liberation people had been, so they had experience that could be tapped as to how to proceed, what kinds of actions might or might not work, what to do if you get arrested.
ABBY STUCKRATH: GLF was a more diverse bunch than Mattachine. There were several Black men involved with the house, including Theodore Kirkland who went on to become one of the founders of D.C. Black Pride. However, other gay political organizations, like Mattachine, struggled to attract and maintain Black membership.
Discussions on how to improve the diversity was a frequent topic in their meetings, but ultimately never made a huge impact in the group's demographics. Dr. Frank Kameny is cited saying, “In a city that was roughly two-thirds black” he saw “a sea of white faces.”
The absence of Black voices within Queer political groups led leaders to create Black gay political organizations, like the DC Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays. But this wouldn’t happen until 1978.
In 1971, race wasn’t the only issue gay political groups grappled with. Gender also remained a point of contention, with many women feeling disrespected and excluded in these groups dominated by men.
NANCY TUCKER: And after a while, I began to hear the men talk about “the girls,” meaning females. And this was, you know, this was the height of the Women's Liberation Movement, and to be called “girls” was pretty insulting. So every time I would hear somebody say “the girls,” I would pipe up “Women!” And then blah blah blah blah blah “girls”–“Women!” blah blah blah “girls”–“Women!” And I became known for doing that. And usually the guy who was talking would correct himself and say “women.” And then the next time he said something, he said “girls” again. But I tried to raise consciousness, if nothing else. I didn't go into any really long beefs about it. I just wanted to remind them that if they refer to each other as men, they should refer to us as women.
ABBY STUCKRATH: This feeling of isolation and disrespect was felt pretty universally within women involved in GLF. At one point, Nancy said she was the only woman left, and even she reached a point where she had enough.
NANCY TUCKER: Out of my irritation, I had composed a little essay that I titled, “Fuck You ‘Brothers.’”
[Pencil scratching on paper]
And I put brothers in quotes, because there was much talk about brothers and sisters, but there was still talk about men and girls. And so I asked for and got time to read my piece, and then I left, and I was–that's why I call myself, the last woman in GLF. It was a pretty harshly worded piece. I was angry, but I was angry at them as a gender. I was not angry at individuals. I loved some of those guys. I really did. I liked them a whole, whole lot, and I respected what they were trying to do, and I supported what they were trying to do, but they irritated the heck out of me with their language about men and girls. So I left, and I doubt that things changed once I left. I never heard that they had changed. I never heard that they had started talking about women.
ABBY STUCKRATH: It wasn’t just GLF that disrespected lesbians. Lesbians were unable to find equal footing in the second-wave feminist movement as well. So a small group of D.C. lesbians decided to take their political and social fate into their own hands.
[Groovy guitar music and typewriter clacking plays in the background]
GINNY BERSON:
(reciting)
We call our paper the Furies because we are also angry.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Left behind in the gay rights movement and disparaged as the ‘lavender menace’ in the feminist movement, the Furies wanted to create something of their own.
GINNY BERSON:
(reciting)
We have been fucked over all our lives by a system which is based on the domination of men over women, which defines male as good and female as only as good as the man you are with. It is a system in which heterosexuality is rigidly enforced and lesbianism rigidly suppressed.
ABBY STUCKRATH: So they became a living, breathing, typing commune in the backyard of the nation's capitol.
GINNY BERSON:
(reciting)
We are a collective of 12 lesbians living and working in Washington, DC. We are rural and urban from the Southwest, Midwest, South, and Northeast. Our ages range from 18 to 28. We are high school dropouts and PhD candidates. We are lower-class, middle-class, and upper-middle-class. We are white. Some of us have been lesbians for 12 years, others for 10 months.
ABBY STUCKRATH: They created a revolutionary newspaper that introduced the world to a new subsect of Queer thought.
GINNY BERSON:
(reciting)
We are committed to ending all oppressions by attacking their roots: male supremacy. The base of our ideological thought is: sexism is the root of all other oppressions, and lesbian and woman oppression will not end by smashing capitalism, racism, and imperialism. Lesbianism is not a matter of sexual preference, but rather one of political choice, which every woman must make if she is to become woman identified and thereby end male supremacy.
[Typewriter clacking ends]
ABBY STUCKRATH: This is the Furies. The powerhouse lesbian newspaper and commune in D.C. that sought to redefine the power and purpose of lesbianism.
[Groovy guitar music fades out]
[Ginny interview clip plays in background]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Ginny Berson is a founding member of the commune and author of the paper’s opening statement, which she just read parts of.
Ginny sat down with me over Zoom in her office in California where she has now since retired.
While her memory is a bit hazy…
GINNY BERSON: Thanks for jogging my memory and making me realize how much I've forgotten.
ABBY STUCKRATH: She will never forget why she wanted to start The Furies and what they stood for.
GINNY BERSON: The Furies was this really clear explanation of how male privilege works, how heterosexual privilege works. We wrote a lot about class and capitalism, how they work, and what we needed, and here's another vision for how to be in the world.
ABBY STUCKRATH: The Furies lesbian collective lived in four rowhouses across the District, three in Capitol Hill. Ginny lived with her lover, Jennifer Woodul, and friend, Rita Mae Brown, on 12th street SE. Living not just together, but communally, played a central role in the Furies practicing what they preach.
GINNY BERSON: We were very committed to collectivity, to working and living collectively. It was part of our politics, really, and it was part of our ethos, really, to reject the strictures of the nuclear family and capitalism.
ABBY STUCKRATH: They shared not just living space, but their paychecks.
GINNY BERSON: There were a number of us who basically had some amount of class privilege and other women who were really working class and did not have access to the same kinds of jobs that the middle class women had. And so we made a decision that the the middle class women would get the best jobs that we could get, and a piece of our income would go to support the working class women, so that they didn't have to have minimum wage jobs, and so that we all had time to work on the paper and work on the development of our politics.
ABBY STUCKRATH: The unofficial headquarters of the commune and newspaper was a rowhouse on 11th Street SE. It was there that they held their meetings, lessons, and editing sessions.
[Chill inspiring music plays in background]
The collective would study other political groups and activists, as an attempt to expand their feminist theories.
GINNY BERSON: We broke into three study groups and studying other revolutionary movements. And how they had really devolved into not-so-revolutionary movements. We would report on what we were what our little study group was studying to the whole group, and we would ask questions, and ‘What can we learn from this? What should we be avoiding? What should we be what what did they do that was good, that was a good idea that we should follow?’
ABBY STUCKRATH: They would take these lessons and translate them into articles, essays, and poems.
Ginny explains that they would all sit together to edit and curate the newspaper.
[Piece of paper shuffling across a table, folding, pencil marking up and down the paper]
GINNY: There was a sheet that we made, I mean, a piece of paper, sheet that was attached to each article as it was submitted, and with everybody's name and space for comments. And it was expected that everybody would read everything before it went to press and before we had our meeting. And then we would talk about the articles in the meeting, and what needed to change, and what were we missing? And also we would start to think about, what do we want to talk about next, in the next issue? And, you know, we need to have it wasn't just all our political thought, which was a lot of it, but there was, we wanted to have stories, and we wanted poetry, and we wanted some representation of lesbian culture, and we had drawings and photos.
ABBY STUCKRATH: When it came time to put the paper together, Ginny and a couple other members would walk down to the basement
To cut
[Paper cutting]
Paste
[Brushing paper with paste]
And build the newspaper for a printing press.
[Typewriter clacking, cutting, and pasting repeats in background]
GINNY BERSON: It was, it was a lot of fun putting the paper together. I mean, somebody actually knew how to do it. And you know what that meant was you know, we would print out on typewriters the articles, and then cut them up, and then glue them, and then put them on these big sheets, and then blue pencil. Blue pencil is very important to something, I don't remember what, and I just have memories of, you know, learning how to do this.
[Typewriter clacking, cutting, and pasting ends]
ABBY STUCKRATH: After printing, the living room would be stuffed with stacks of newspapers, that they all labeled and shipped themselves, which was no small task, especially because the paper was nationally distributed.
Their theories, poems, and articles were read all over the country. It put the struggle that many white lesbians across the country had on the front page. But like every commune, the Furies had its cracks.
[Chill inspiring music fades out]
GINNY BERSON: It was just an easy, easy, until it wasn't.
ABBY STUCKRATH: The group often clashed over their class issues. Ginny uses a cookie jar example to explain the dynamic.
GINNY BERSON: We learned that Lee would come over and eat our cookies, and we didn't like it. We didn't want Lee eating our cookies. It was one thing to share your car and your paycheck, but it was quite another thing to share your cookies. So we hid the cookies, and, but we made it a class thing. We made it a thing about how Lee is so middle class that she just thinks she can come over here and eat our cookies. You know, no, Lee just was hungry and wanted our cookies, and, you know, but that's a very kind of harmless example of how it was weaponized. But there are other ways that it was not so harmless.
ABBY STUCKRATH: The Furies were meant to share each other's wealth and burdens. That including child care, a major point of contention for the group.
[Melancholic folky music plays in the background]
ABBY STUCKRATH: There were three children living in the Furies' houses. One was Cassidy, a young girl whose parents couldn’t care for her. Joan Biren, better known as JEB and her partner Sharon Devey devoutly cared for Cassidy.
JEB was the photographer of the commune.
[Camera shutter goes off]
She would later self-publish Eye to Eye: Portraits of Lesbians, the first photo book of Lesbians made by a Lesbian.
But at this moment in time, she was just a caring guardian who wanted to create a home and life for Cassidy. The Furies denied JEB and Sharon from doing so.
The group decided that all three children, including Cassidy, could no longer live in the Furies, that they were a distraction from their work and politics.
GINNY: We did some terrible things, I have to say. We the, children… just making a decision that the three children who were living with us could not live with us anymore. That was a terrible thing.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Because of this, JEB and Sharon left the Furies. But, their commitment to Cassidy remained. So when Cassidy’s mother put them up for adoption, the couple applied.
They were denied. Lesbians did not qualify as suitable candidates for adoption at the time.
[Melancholic folky music fades out]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Independent artistic ambition, clashes over class, and childcare were just some of the many fractures that eventually resulted in the disbandment of the paper and commune in 1973, just two years after they began.
They had published ten issues of the Furies newspaper.
[Uplifting retro music plays in the background]
SUSAN FERENTINOS: The Furies' impact went well beyond a newspaper that was published for two years. In a way, it started a revolution.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Susan Ferentinos, a historian and preservationist, wrote the National Landmark nomination for the two-storied, red brick row house in Capitol Hill on 11th Street SE that housed the Furies’ headquarters.
SUSAN FERENTINOS: The collective was very significant in articulating what separate, lesbian separatism came to be. It introduced the idea to the larger women's movement that sexual identity was a social construction, rather than a biological imperative.
ABBY STUCKRATH: In those two years, the Furies rewrote lesbians’ role in the feminist movement. They…
SUSAN: Inspired a whole generation of lesbians to explore what separatism would mean in their lives.
[Typewriter clicking sound in the background]
GINNY BERSON:
(reciting)
Lesbians, as outcasts from every culture but their own, have the most to gain by ending race, class, and national supremacy within their own ranks. Lesbians must get out of the straight women's movement and form their own movement in order to be taken seriously to stop straight women from oppressing us and to force straight women to deal with their own lesbianism. Lesbians cannot develop a common politics with women who do not accept lesbianism as a political issue.
[Typewriter clacking and uplifting retro music fade out]
BRIAN MILLER: The Skyline collective wanted to associate with them. They wanted to be like the male equivalent of what the Furies were doing.
ABBY STUCKRATH: While the Furies grew and then later dispersed, the GLF house was going through its own internal conflict as well. Author and activist, Brian Miller, says that Michael Ferri, a GLF commune member, was growing tired of the lawlessness of the GLF house. He wanted a structure similar to what the Furies had.
BRIAN MILLER: I think he came home from work one day
[Door opening, keys jangling, people giggling, running down steps]
and saw a bunch of naked men running up, down the stairs, screaming happily.
[Door slams]
And he was like, I can't take this anymore. So he moved out almost instantly and formed a second house, which was called Skyline Faggots.
ABBY STUCKRATH: The Skyline Collective moved to 1614 S Street NW, just down the block—three doors down, to be exact—from the GLF house.
BRIAN MILLER: They all wanted to be serious. They all wanted to be like support, 24-hour support, weekly meetings to discuss various issues. They probably had a common bank account. Jim Lawrence probably took care of the bills for everyone. So it was pretty organized and quiet. And rarely were there parties.
ABBY STUCKRATH: The rowhouse had a lavender painted living room, and a large purple banner in the dining room enshrined with the words ‘Skyline Faggots.’
Their bright red door was closed, not open like the GLF house. The house wasn’t meant to be a community center or a newspaper distributor.
Similar to the Furies commune, they had specific duties and responsibilities. Everyone had to cook one dinner a week. No one was allowed to bring in someone who didn’t know it was a gay commune. They held mandatory weekly meetings, where they would discuss their household issues but also the politics they were studying.
BRIAN MILLER: Marxism was quite popular at the time, and so we want to, we want to form a study group to read Marxist works, to read Marx books and discuss them and see how Marxist principles apply to our lives as gay men, you know, so that was their effort.
ABBY STUCKRATH: In history, the collective is most well-known for its writings in the last edition of the Methodist Student movement magazine, motive.
BRIAN MILLER: So they put this thing together, and they got various gay writers, poets, essayists from all around the country, and put this issue together, and it was kind of a snapshot of revolutionary gay liberationist thinking at the time. However, they couldn't get the printer to print it, because the printer said there's objectionable material in this issue. And what they objected to, apparently, was there were one or two illustrations that had very vague, like penises shown or something. So it took a while for people to prevail upon them to print this issue. I don't know if, if any kind of force was brought to bear, but there was a delay of a few months before they printed it. In the meantime, you know, the world had moved on. The Gay movement had changed somewhat. And, um, so the time it finally was published, it was like, yeah, it was an artifact.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Michael Ferri, founder of the Skyline Collective, and Roy Eddey wrote the opening article for the historic last edition of motive.
[Typewriter typing]
(reciting) “This issue is for you and us, Gay men, knowing that in our strength we are proud and glad to be Gay, to be able to love other men, both emotionally and sexually, and knowing that this is beautiful even though our anti-Lesbian/anti-Faggot society denies our existence by dismissing us as "sick," as "misfits." We know we exist. We are gay and we are proud. motive, even with its long history and affiliation with the United Methodist Church, has come out!”
[Typewriter dings, carriage slides back]
[Groovy music plays in background]
The magazine was published in 1972, and the collective would last a couple years longer, ultimately disbanding in 1976.
The Gay Liberation Front house was long over by that time. Within three years, the house began to overcrowd and funds started to dry up. But what really put them over the edge, was the owner of the house wanting his property back. So by the end of 1973, the GLF house had officially dissolved, and much of the political scene had moved into different Queer political groups like The Gay and Lesbian Activist Alliance, The Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, and the D.C. Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays.
[Groovy music fades out]
[Birds chirping, ambient outdoor noise]
BRIAN MILLER: I don’t see any major work being done on any of them.
[Brian Miller interview clip plays underneath]
ABBY STUCKRATH: After wrapping up our work on this episode, I asked Brian if we could visit S street, and see the two houses that once defined gay political life.
Now that, like, we're standing here, and it's decades since, more than 50 years since it happened, why do you think it's important that we learn about it or talk about it?
[Birds chirping]
BRIAN MILLER: That's a great question.
[Thoughtful guitar music plays]
Well, why is it important to learn any history? You should find out where you came from and who your forebears were, and what they did and were able to accomplish.
[Brian Miller interview clip plays underneath]
ABBY STUCKRATH: While the red door on the Skyline Collective house has taken on a more stoic shade of black, and the GLF house now has a finished fancy basement, the exteriors of the rowhouses have been almost frozen in time.
[Knock on door, door opens]
[Phone rings]
Queer history in D.C. is not memorialized through monuments or museums. It lives within the dark red bricks of the GLF house and the castle-like stone of the Skyline home.
[Typewriter clacking, then dings]
[Thoughtful guitar music fades out]
[Queering the District Podcast theme plays in the background]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Hey baby, we’re so glad you’re here, and thanks for listening until the end of the episode.
Don’t worry, we promise we won’t leave you hanging too long. Next week, we’ll have another historical episode coming your way. Unlike last season, the episodes won’t be in chronological order, but instead grouped by how folks gathered or used homes. So next week’s historical episode, we’ll be rewinding back to the 1920s and traveling through a century’s worth of stories highlighting some of the D.C. homes that hosted Queer art and poetry salons. We can’t wait for you to hear it, so be sure to tune in next week!
We also have our launch party, or ‘darty,’ if you will, this Saturday from 3 to 6 p.m. at Spark Social! Join us to celebrate the launch of season two with drag performances, dancing, and more while also raising money for Baldwin House! All ticket proceeds will go to Baldwin House, a community-led affordable housing cooperative, intentional community, and mutual aid hub created by and for working-class people in D.C.
Learn more about the event on our website, queeringthedistrictpodcast.com or at spark-dc.com. We are so excited, and we hope to see all y’all there!
We want to thank the Rainbow History Project, the DC Public Library, and the countless other academics and historians, whether featured in these episodes or not, who helped inspire and guide us through this process.
And shout out to the rest of the QTDP team, Julia, Andrew, Ellie, and Mads for making this podcast happen.
You can find a transcript for this, and every episode, on our website at queeringthedistrictpodcast.com and linked below in the episode notes.
If you want to learn more and stay up to date on all things Queering the District Podcast, follow our social media pages @queeringthedistrictpodcast. You don’t want to miss exclusive interview clips, juicy voicemails, and bi-weekly spotlights.
Do you have a story to share? Do you think we missed something? Give us a call, and bare it all after the beep at 202-753-6570.
If you’re still with us, we have a treat for you. As always, we finish every episode with a Phi-Phi voicemail left by a local Queer.
[Queering the District Podcast theme music fades out]
VOICEMAIL: Hi, I don’t really have a story to share. I just came across this booth in the D.C. State Fair. I’m new to D.C. from PR, and I just wanted to let you all know that Queer lives matter, that love is love, and we need to continue advocating for Queer rights. We’re not alone in this. We have many allies out there, and we just gotta keep up the fight. Love y’all!
