WEBVTT 00:00:21.700 --> 00:00:27.600 I found a tumor was my way of keeping the bullies at Bay and 00:00:27.600 --> 00:00:28.900 I figured that out really fast. 00:00:30.700 --> 00:00:33.700 I was born in 1955 00:00:34.100 --> 00:00:44.100 with my mom and I told her that I thought that I was queer 00:00:44.100 --> 00:00:48.500 or R, whatever word, I use cuz I was noticing the boys at school. 00:00:48.500 --> 00:00:50.000 She said, if this is the way, 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:51.500 you know, you're going to live your life. 00:00:51.500 --> 00:00:55.900 I think you'd be subject to ridicule could not bear people, 00:00:55.900 --> 00:00:57.100 laughing at you. 00:00:57.100 --> 00:01:01.300 And so, I think you should live your life very quiet. 00:01:01.300 --> 00:01:03.800 When I mean, who did she have to compare? 00:01:03.800 --> 00:01:05.700 What a gay person was back. 00:01:05.700 --> 00:01:10.300 Then you had maybe Liberace who never even came out as gay, 00:01:10.300 --> 00:01:13.200 but flamboyant you had Charles Nelson. 00:01:13.200 --> 00:01:17.600 Reilly, I think that then you had call Lynne on the Center 00:01:17.600 --> 00:01:21.100 Square, the Hollywood Squares Chattanooga Tennessee, we have 00:01:21.100 --> 00:01:22.000 one guy bar. I 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:25.700 was 15 years old when I walked in the door and everybody 00:01:25.700 --> 00:01:27.900 gay was in there, you know, in our town, 00:01:27.900 --> 00:01:30.400 it didn't matter if your high school students are black. 00:01:30.700 --> 00:01:33.200 Why we had our one lesbians to? 00:01:33.200 --> 00:01:35.800 It was a year after the Summer of Love, 00:01:35.800 --> 00:01:37.000 in San Francisco. 00:01:37.000 --> 00:01:41.400 I wanted to be a hippy, but I really, 00:01:41.400 --> 00:01:46.100 really, really beginning to realize how being gay could be a problem. 00:01:46.100 --> 00:01:55.300 We couldn't get any, how, you know, 00:01:55.300 --> 00:01:56.300 from the government. 00:01:56.300 --> 00:01:59.900 But what was interesting was the way in which we figured 00:01:59.900 --> 00:02:02.800 out, we're going to have to take care of our own. 00:02:02.800 --> 00:02:07.800 If so, the acting was almost at the age of that was going on 00:02:07.800 --> 00:02:10.900 but we still hit the bars every night. 00:02:10.900 --> 00:02:15.500 I realized you would go to these bars and you receive producers. 00:02:15.500 --> 00:02:17.800 You would see fellow actors, but during the day, 00:02:17.800 --> 00:02:19.900 it was very weak. 00:02:19.900 --> 00:02:24.200 My big journey into my queer, them was my sobriety, 00:02:24.200 --> 00:02:28.900 and I had about the gay manager and a gay agent and they would 00:02:28.900 --> 00:02:29.500 tell me 00:02:34.200 --> 00:02:41.300 Honey, you are not pulling it off. 00:02:41.300 --> 00:02:43.500 And so when I decided, okay, look, 00:02:43.500 --> 00:02:45.400 this is a marketable package here. 00:02:45.400 --> 00:02:46.700 This is what you're going to get. 00:02:46.700 --> 00:02:47.800 That was a big lesson. 00:02:47.800 --> 00:02:51.600 I learned was that I can be a little offended that I work Stalin 00:02:51.600 --> 00:02:56.100 since in solid as you get older you're not a self-conscious 00:02:56.100 --> 00:03:00.300 weight. When you're young, you worry so much about what people 00:03:00.300 --> 00:03:01.400 think about you. 00:03:01.400 --> 00:03:06.100 I would like for the Young Generation to get involved and what 00:03:06.100 --> 00:03:06.600 I tell people 00:03:08.400 --> 00:03:12.300 Is this is such a secret it's a source of my sight. 00:03:12.300 --> 00:03:16.000 I never registered to vote till I was 44 years old. 00:03:16.000 --> 00:03:21.100 I'm realizing that the change comes from within and your cloud 00:03:21.100 --> 00:03:23.600 account and if you're young and you're gay, 00:03:23.600 --> 00:03:28.400 the LBGTQ Community, you have to vote. 00:03:28.400 --> 00:03:33.300 Even if you just get involved on that that levels. 00:03:33.300 --> 00:03:35.800 The best thing that I think that came of the Stonewall 00:03:35.800 --> 00:03:39.500 generation was that we realized look, they're coming in and beating 00:03:39.500 --> 00:03:41.700 us up in The Spar a New York and now we're on our own 00:03:41.700 --> 00:03:44.100 and we got to take care of her and I think we grew up 00:03:44.100 --> 00:03:48.300 with so much Prejudice and so much fear. 00:03:48.300 --> 00:03:50.600 I think that's what the Stonewall was about. 00:03:50.600 --> 00:03:54.100 Was that look all we're trying to do is get together in this 00:03:54.100 --> 00:03:57.900 little bar. You know, just all of us and you bring the police 00:03:57.900 --> 00:04:00.400 and drag us out. 00:04:00.400 --> 00:04:01.900 Okay. Enough. 00:04:02.500 --> 00:04:07.300 Enough. And we become a force to be to be reckoned with and that 00:04:07.300 --> 00:04:09.300 all happened within our generation. 00:04:09.300 --> 00:04:12.700 I mean, who would have thought, who would have ever thought?