- This program is brought to you by the combined resources
of the Wisconsin Historical Society
and PBS Wisconsin.
*
- Dick Wagner: We define ourselves as a society by the stories we tell.
If we don't tell the stories of LGBT history,
then we're basically erasing them as if they didn't exist.
- Narrator: The history of Wisconsin
has long been told from a particular point of view,
one that has often concealed LGBTQ+ people.
- Scott Seyforth: As I came out as a gay man, I looked for those stories.
I have to tell you, those were hard to find.
- Ashley Brown: There can be a tremendous silence
about individuals and communities.
That silence has not been accidental.
- Long hidden,
these are stories of extraordinary Wisconsinites.
- Josie Osborne: They're people who blazed a trail,
people who did great things.
- Michail Takach: The resilience of these people
in a world that feared them, outlawed them.
- But no longer would they be hidden.
A movement was born.
A stance on freedom was made.
- Víctor Macías-González: We organized, we learned, we changed things.
- Dick Wagner: These Wisconsinites were liberating themselves.
Somehow, despite the oppression and homophobia,
they had a place.
- Their stories reveal a larger tapestry
of our collective past.
- Will Fellows: It's not just LGBTQ history
or queer history.
It's also just Wisconsin history.
- Wisconsin Pride.
- Announcer: Funding for Wisconsin Pride
is provided by
Park Bank,
S.C. Johnson,
Greater Milwaukee Foundation,
Evjue Foundation,
the charitable arm of the Capital Times,
CUNA Mutual Group,
New Harvest Foundation,
West Foundation,
Paula Bonner and Ann Schaffer,
La Crosse Community Foundation,
MG&E Foundation,
Rogers Behavioral Health,
with additional support from
and with support from
Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programs,
and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.
*
- Dick Wagner: We've been here all along, and nobody knew it.
There is a long LBGT history in Wisconsin,
but it's been hidden.
- Josie Osborne: We have been erased from the history books.
- History is about more
than a written record or important dates.
It's about people,
about the actions they take,
even those that go unseen,
like finding one's own courage
or reaching personal liberation.
- Josie Osborne: It's so important
that stories like this be told.
- Historians are now revealing a rich history
of Wisconsin's LGBTQ+ past.
Telling stories of adversity, sacrifice,
personal triumphs,
and history-making moments [starter gun fires]
lost to time. [cheers and applause]
- Kai Pyle: There's lots of different queer history,
and it's not all the same.
It's important to know about the past
because it explains how we got where we are.
- Dick Wagner: That's part of the hidden history
that needs to be unhidden.
[crickets chirping]
- Kai Pyle: If you are living in North America,
you're living on indigenous land,
and you need to know the history
of the land you're living on.
[wind brushes grass field]
The history of Two-Spirit people
is an important part of that.
- Two-Spirit is a term used today for Native people,
past and present,
believed to possess both masculine and feminine spirit.
It could be a person born male,
but drawn to characteristically female roles
throughout their life.
Historically, Two-Spirit people
were widely accepted by their communities
and were known by many names.
- Kai Pyle: We have a really rich vocabulary
for describing gender and sexual diversity.
In Anishinaabemowin, our language,
it's agokwe.
For the Navajo, it's nàdleehé.
For Dakota people, it's winkte.
We have terms for people like us.
- Names differed by nation and language,
as did a Two-Spirit person's role in their society.
But often, Two-Spirit people were highly respected
and believed to possess special talents and insight.
- Kai Pyle: It encompasses our world views,
which are often very different
from how Euro-American society defines gender and sexuality.
- Though embraced by their communities,
Two-Spirit people were met with disdain by Western travelers.
In 1830, American artist George Catlin
traveled the Mississippi River
and witnessed a Sauk and Meskwaki ceremony
centered on a Two-Spirit member of the tribe.
While the event may have been held in honor of the Two-Spirit,
the title of Catlin's painting
reveals his attitude toward the subject.
- Kai Pyle: The painting was called "The Dance of the Berdache."
The term 'Berdache' came to refer to what they would call,
like, a passive homosexual, in their derogatory terms.
Catlin describes it
as one of the most disgusting and abhorrent facets
of the New World;
that it should be eradicated
before it even can be recorded in any more detail.
[heartbeat]
*
- The Europeans who came to the New World
brought very specific views
about those who deviated from heterosexual norms.
Eventually, those norms would be rigidly enforced.
- Kai Pyle: Starting in the late 1800s,
there was a big push to civilize Native people.
The United States government
and often also the religious organizations
that ran many of the boarding schools
were trying to make the kids into
'cookie cutters' of American boys and American girls.
- For Two-Spirit people, this was especially traumatic.
- Kai Pyle: There are stories of Two-Spirit people
who disappeared, essentially, from boarding schools.
Once discovered to be Two-Spirit,
they were taken away and never seen again.
[somber music]
- As Wisconsin became a territory in 1836,
laws were created that called for harsh punishments
for homosexual acts.
The topic was widely considered taboo
and kept out of conversation
until 1895 when world events thrust it onto headlines
across the globe.
[tense music]
- Dick Wagner: London was the world's capital.
Wisconsin newspapers would have a column from London
talking about the arts and political happenings.
Oscar Wilde was the toast of the town.
- Playwright Oscar Wilde
was one of the first global celebrities.
He had even visited Wisconsin on a speaking tour.
But in London in 1895, he was put on trial,
and his homosexuality was exposed in salacious detail.
- Dick Wagner: The coverage reveals
a total negative perception about homosexuality.
"Wilde's Disgrace" and "Shame for Oscar."
One paper ran with the headline, "Wilde Not Yet a Suicide,"
as if he should certainly be one.
[ship blows horn, ship engine hums]
- In La Crosse, Wisconsin, the city's many newspapers
ran updates on Wilde's trial in 1895.
That year, George Coleman Poage was coming of age
and entering La Crosse High School.
[waltz music]
- Ashley Brown: Poage was a very intelligent young man.
We know that he was a voracious reader.
It's not out of the realm of possibility
that he was reading about the trial of Oscar Wilde,
gaining a very clear sense
of what America
and, indeed, what the world thought
about gay men.
- Poage's story reveals the challenges
of telling LGBTQ+ history from a time
when true identity had to be a closely guarded secret,
one Poage would carry his entire life.
- Ashley Brown: Homosexuality very often has been something
that society has viewed as shameful.
And there can be a tremendous silence.
- Poage graduated from La Crosse High School as salutatorian,
then went on to the University of Wisconsin
to study history.
He would make history himself by stepping onto the track.
- Ashley Brown: When he joins the track team,
lo and behold,
he is the first African American on the track team
at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
- Official: On your marks, set! [fires starter gun]
[cheering]
- Poage excelled at the hurdles,
a standout,
earning himself an invitation to compete at the 1904 Olympics.
* Meet me in St. Louis, Louis *
* Meet me at the fair
- The 1904 Olympic Games were held
as a part of the World's Fair in St. Louis,
a notoriously segregated city.
Even as a competitor on the world stage,
Poage was isolated from his fellow athletes
when not competing.
- Ashley Brown: He would have been with them,
but not regarded quite as the same.
He spent the vast majority of his life
living in that kind of America.
*
- Segregated, alienated,
Poage would not waver.
[fires starter gun]
In St. Louis,
history was waiting for him
at the finish line.
- Ashley Brown: He won two bronze medals,
making him the first African American to win medals
at the Olympic Games.
- George Coleman Poage from La Crosse, Wisconsin,
was among the world's best.
A triumph and a moment for American history.
However, in the subsequent decades,
Poage's achievements would be nearly forgotten.
That would start to change
when UW-La Crosse historian Bruce Mouser
helped revive interest in the athlete.
- Audrey Mouser Elegbede: From my dad's perspective,
Poage's story was one
that just hadn't received the recognition that it deserved.
It seemed to have been forgotten by history.
Just not... documented.
- As Bruce Mouser started to document
Poage's post-Olympic life,
certain clues began to emerge,
pointing to a hidden aspect of Poage's story.
He resigned a St. Louis teaching position
under a cloud of suspicion.
He moved to Chicago's gay-friendly Cabaret District.
- Ashley Brown: Poage also joined the Chicago Athletic Club,
considered a social outlet for gay men.
- Audrey Mouser Elegbede: Poage had to keep quiet
or downplay
many of the things that made him who he was.
- Bruce Mouser had clues
that supported a theory that Poage had been a gay man.
But he didn't feel that he had enough evidence
to make this claim.
- Audrey Mouser Elegbede: To out someone after their passing
has considerable impact,
and I think he wanted to be respectful
not only of Poage, but with the family.
Is that part of his identity they wanted to share?
- Jennifer Livingston: It's been years in the making,
but today Poage Park officially had its grand opening ceremony.
- Mouser's research
had helped ignite interest in the community
about their historic Olympian.
Poage's relatives came to La Crosse
for the park dedication.
Mouser was unprepared for what happened
when meeting Poage's grand-nephew.
- Audrey Elegbede: The nephew really, in sort of a casual way,
sort of, [speaking softly] "You know my uncle was gay."
It made it possible for him to complete Poage's story.
- Ashley Brown: It's really about
giving a full account of the individual's life.
A person's sexuality also matters
in the sense that this is a part of their identity.
- Audrey Mouser Elegbede: It was uncovering...
uncovering a life.
- Over 100 years after making Olympic history,
George Coleman Poage was welcomed home.
- Audrey Mouser Elegbede: For there to be acknowledgment
for who Poage was, both as an athlete and as a man--
[piano chords]
For a man like Poage,
the early 20th century's social and legal limitations
on sexual expression forced him into a hidden life.
Across the state in Milwaukee,
another man of the time, Ralph Kerwineo,
was hiding in plain sight.
- Kai Pyle: Ralph Kerwineo was a Black and Native man
who was extremely stylish.
If you look at his photos, he's got it going on... [chuckles]
for sure!
- Kerwineo's style would fly in the face
of the era's strict policing of gender expression.
- Kai: Ralph became briefly infamous
in Milwaukee in 1914.
He was arrested by the police
for allegedly passing as a man and marrying two women.
He was known as the 'Girl-Man of Milwaukee.'
- Born in Kendallville, Indiana, and raised as Cora Anderson,
Kerwineo hoped for a career
in one of the few fields available to women.
In 1900, while in nursing school in Chicago,
Kerwineo met Mamie White,
and the two started out life together.
However, both struggled to find work
at a time when immoral doctors could take advantage,
demanding sexual favors before hiring.
With few opportunities,
the two young nurses calculated a man's wage
would make their life together much better.
- Kai Pyle: They decided to move to Milwaukee,
and this person started to live
as the person known as Ralph Kerwineo.
- Kerwineo found work as a bellboy
at the Plankinton Hotel.
Then, as a factory hand.
White kept care of their home.
They appeared to all as a traditional husband and wife.
Then, as happens in many relationships,
troubles began.
- Kai Pyle: Ralph, in Mamie's eyes,
started to get too... comfortable with his expression as a man.
Coarse in his habits, going out with other men after work.
Eventually, they split.
And a little while later,
Mamie discovered that Ralph was seeing Dorothy Kleinowski
and that they were, in fact, getting married.
- Hurt and angry at Kerwineo,
White showed up at his workplace
under the guise of applying for a job.
Told they had no work suited for women,
White revealed they already had a female employee
and uncovered Kerwineo's secret.
- Kai Pyle: This blew up all over the papers.
- Kerwineo was arrested.
In 1914, it was against the law
to wear the clothes of another gender.
- Kai Pyle: I can't imagine being incarcerated
and then paraded through newspapers,
having your name dragged all over the place.
- The name being dragged was Cora Anderson,
the identity Kerwineo had long left behind.
His effort to live honestly as he saw himself
would be called dishonest and deceptive.
- Kai Pyle: It's a story that tells us a lot
about the way gender-variant people
have been criminalized in the past.
- Kerwineo was forced into a dress
as part of a sensational public trial.
[judge banging gavel]
The overflowed crowd laughed when, under oath,
he had no choice but to say he was a woman.
- Kai Pyle: He was released as long as he promised
that he "would return to wearing skirts," as they put it.
- At the end of the trial, Kerwineo was quoted:
"When we leave this court, Kerwineo will be dead.
My name when I leave here will be Cora Anderson."
[dramatic orchestra]
But Ralph Kerwineo would not die.
- Kai Pyle: After his arrest,
he went around with some vaudeville circuits.
He would start off the show dressed as a woman,
then show up as a man, vice versa.
- And he kept presenting as male
for long after the infamous trial.
- Kai Pyle: I think it shows
a lot of resilience on Ralph's part.
It was 1914,
and we can't necessarily apply labels from today
to somebody who lived a hundred years ago.
But he said his woman's soul had died,
and a man's soul had taken its place.
Ralph was going to do whatever Ralph wanted.
Whoever he was,
he had a strong spirit and free will.
- Despite his strong spirit and free will,
mainstream America was not ready
for Ralph Kerwineo to live his full life
freely among them.
Society had rejected him.
In this same era, another Wisconsin man
found his solution to living freely
by building his own personal oasis,
removed from society and even time.
- Dick Wagner: Ralph Warner of Cooksville,
I call Wisconsin's first out gay man.
[acoustic guitar]
- An eccentric,
living a lifestyle from a century before his time,
Ralph Warner entertained guests
at his home and personal preservation project,
which he named 'The House Next Door.'
The old building on a small plot in rural Wisconsin
was Warner's very own gateway,
transporting him from the 1920s back to the mid-1800s.
- Larry Reed: He was an unusual character
and doing an unusual thing,
sort of liking old stuff.
People were tossing that stuff away.
- Warner's interests ran counter to the mood of his times,
as 1920s America became more urban and less rural.
His deliberate effort to slow
the increasingly frenetic pace of life
caught the attention of magazines and newspapers.
- Larry Reed: The word was out.
Good Housekeeping,
House and Garden.
Ralph Warner put Cooksville on the map.
- Warner's land of long ago
promised more than a collection of antiques
and old-fashioned meals.
It was a place where one could live a different life.
- Will Fellows: Warner was really, in some ways,
ministering to certain people
who were looking for something to soothe their angst
about the ways
in which American life was changing.
[engine rumbles]
But then, ironically, the automobile,
which in some ways was the bane of preservation,
was also the lifeline that brought people to Cooksville
to find their hours of respite
in Warner's creation of The House Next Door.
- Larry Reed: Ralph Warner's House Next Door was charming,
just a charming little place.
People called it "a wee bit of England in Wisconsin."
- Will Fellows: Summer evenings with the windows open,
the sound of song and piano from the House Next Door
traveling through this little village.
- But the main attraction was Ralph Warner himself.
- Dick Wagner: He tells one lady who comes to look at his curios:
"Well, you should look at me.
I'm the most curious thing here."
So, he had just sort of created this persona for himself.
And they gave fairly good clues about who he was.
- Warner defied the strict gender norms of the 1920s.
He entertained his visitors
by cooking and serving the meals himself.
He designed and curated the interior of his home,
and tended his traditional English garden.
- Will Fellows: It's representative
of a certain strain of the gay sensibility.
It includes that love of things related to the home and decor,
things related to hospitality and caregiving.
- Dick Wagner: By presenting himself as who he was, he was,
in his own way, for his own time, coming out,
which is really quite remarkable for the 1920s.
- Through the House Next Door,
Warner had created his own personal haven.
A place removed from time,
where people could be who they wanted to be.
- Will Fellows: He really viewed it as a sacred little space
that he would share with people,
like-minded, kindred spirit type people.
- Ralph Warner's the 'House Next Door'
was a predecessor to the coming heritage tourism movement
in Wisconsin.
The next generation to undertake historical preservation
often looked to Warner as an inspiration.
Such was the case for Edgar Hellum,
who still remembered Warner well
when interviewed in his nineties.
- Edgar Hellum: Mr. Warner, Ralph Warner,
had an old house that he had restored,
and he served meals.
That's what gave me the bug.
*
- In 1934, Hellum met Bob Neal.
Through a shared passion for old buildings,
a life partnership would develop.
In a letter sent right after their meeting, Hellum gushed,
"Bob Neal,
just the name makes the weekend seem like make-believe!"
The two men lived at a time
when they needed to keep their love for each other a secret.
However, the life's work they built together
would draw attention and admiration for generations.
[elegant piano]
In the early 1800s,
prospectors swarmed Southwestern Wisconsin
in search of lead ore.
They dug caves into the hillsides,
reminiscent of badger holes,
earning the namesake the 'Wisconsin Badgers.'
In the 1830s, Cornish immigrant miners
settled in the boomtown of Mineral Point,
building tiny stone cottages for their family homes.
- Will Fellows: These were very small, modest dwellings,
some of which
seemed to almost grow out of the bluff behind them.
- By the mid-1930s,
the cottages had been long abandoned.
They were being torn down for their materials.
But where others saw ruin,
Edgar Hellum and Bob Neal saw beauty.
- Edgar Hellum: Bob said, "I've found a house,"
but he said, "It's so decrepit."
He said, "I don't know whether it can be fixed or not.
Can you come over and take a look?"
And he had found Pendarvis House.
Oh, God, it was awful! [chuckles heartily]
- So, for ten dollars and a dream,
the two men purchased the cottage
and set about restoring it.
- Will Fellows: People thought they were kind of nuts.
These two young men
down on the slummiest street in town
living together in one of these rundown stone cottages
a lot of people thought should just be knocked down.
- Dick Wagner: It was an unusual thing to happen
in a small Wisconsin town.
They were often described as artistic young men,
and it probably was true in that
you had to have some sense of what could be,
which is what artists do
is they create something out of almost nothing.
- After many months of working sixteen-hour days,
Hellum and Neal had restored the home to its 1800s aesthetic.
They gave it the Cornish surname 'Pendarvis.'
- Will Fellows: Bob and Edgar were thrilled
but needed to make some sort of a living from it.
- They started with opening a small tea room at Pendarvis.
But it soon evolved into a quaint restaurant,
embracing the historic identity of the locale.
For their signature dish,
Bob Neal turned to his family's old Cornish recipes
and landed on the pasty.
- Will Fellows: Even though the food itself was very basic,
almost kind of like a peasant food in a way,
there was a touch of finesse to the meal.
- Edgar Hellum: We made the best pasty
that anybody made in Mineral Point.
We used top-grade beef.
We had a good crust recipe,
and then, it had to come right from the oven to the table.
Simple farm fare, but we did it with a touch of class.
- Will Fellows: The focus was not fine dining.
The focus was the experience.
- A pasty was served with a flourish
for the table to share
while Bob Neal told tales of the Cornish miners
who had settled old Mineral Point.
- Dick Wagner: Bob Neal clearly had a vision
for what heritage tourism could be.
- By the late 1940s, Pendarvis House restaurant
had become a niche destination.
The tiny operation received national visibility
after being included in an influential travel guide
written by food critic and later cake-box celebrity
Duncan Hines.
- Edgar Hellum: Duncan Hines,
he said, "Don't change a thing, don't change a thing."
[laughs warmly]
- Over the next several decades,
Neal and Hellum acquired additional stone cottages
in Mineral Point.
A restoration project that became their life's work,
and one of Wisconsin's most-visited historic sites.
- Dick Wagner: Pendarvis really sparked and grew historic tourism
here in Wisconsin.
- Will Fellows: Gay men made an extraordinary contribution
in preservation.
Both Warner and Bob Neal and Edgar Hellum,
they were really early advocates for cultural tourism.
- The two men complemented each other.
Neal handled the food and championed Cornish lore,
while Hellum brought the old buildings back to life.
Though it was an age
when they needed to keep their love for each other a secret,
their shared vision and artistic endeavor
endures to this day.
- Dick Wagner: It's a remarkable story
of how two gay men led their lives
to create this artistic and historic place.
It's not just part of the Cornish lore,
but it's part of the gay history of the state.
- While Pendarvis was a passion to preserve,
another couple was embracing change,
exploring a new and radical art movement
through their school in Milwaukee.
- Josie Osborne: The Layton School of Art
was started by two women in 1920,
Miss Partridge and Miss Frink.
- Charlotte Partridge and Miriam Frink
met at Downer College for Women in Milwaukee
in 1915.
Historically, women's colleges were a place where
romantic female relationships could safely thrive.
For Partridge and Frink,
their love and commitment for each other
thrived for more than 50 years.
- Josie Osborne: Charlotte Partridge was charismatic.
She was just sort of lovable, right?
She smiled a lot.
She was the gregarious one.
Miriam Frink, she was much more serious
and let Charlotte be the front person.
- The two made friends with Milwaukee businessman
Frederick Layton, the meatpacking millionaire
who had opened the Layton Gallery in 1888,
and filled it with grand works purchased on his travels.
In 1920, Layton offered the gallery basement
to Partridge and Frink to hold classes.
But the art they would inspire
would be radically different
from the old works that filled the gallery's walls.
- Josie Osborne: Charlotte Partridge and Miriam Frink
were more aligned
with what was happening in terms of
the European avant-garde.
- European avant-garde movements
like Cubism and Dadaism
challenged artistic conventions,
shocked some,
and spoke deeply to others.
- Josie Osborne: For Charlotte Partridge and Miriam Frink,
they brought these avant-garde ideas into their teaching,
into their own art collection in their home,
and embraced it.
[piano]
- In the house the couple had designed and built together,
they hung modern works of art
at home among bold creative expressions.
- Josie Osborne: There's a pretty strong connection
between queer identity and avant-garde movements.
There's something about growing up
knowing you're different
from what the rest of society says people should be,
just makes you more open to new ideas.
- New ideas fueled
Partridge and Frink's avant-garde art school.
- Josie Osborne: The Layton School of Art
was basically an incubator for creative expression.
- Like Europe's Bauhaus, the Layton School
put art and design on equal footing.
Nude drawing classes
were attended by students of both sexes,
something previously unheard of in Milwaukee.
Generations of graduates would contribute
to the city's art scene and design of its products.
- Josie Osborne: They're developing these creative minds,
really sent a lot of people out into the community
with this training and this understanding
of what was possible.
- All things seemed possible for the Layton School.
Through the Great Depression,
the two leaders took no salary to stay open.
During World War II, they held free art shows
intended to build public support for the war effort.
After the war, enrollment boomed.
Partridge and Frink would greet the 1950s
with a bold plan for a new modern home for the school.
But times were changing.
- Josie Osborne: The 1950s were not, not a good time to be a woman.
Definitely not a good time to be a queer woman.
They had just raised all the money
to build this amazing building.
Then it was determined that it wasn't appropriate
for two women to be leading a school of national reputation.
- The Layton School's male-dominated board
forced Charlotte Partridge and Miriam Frink to leave the school
they founded and nurtured for decades.
Their last work
was scratching a pencil edit to the board's resolution,
making it crystal clear
that their retirement was not voluntary.
Without their leadership,
the Layton School ultimately struggled.
Its sleek headquarters were condemned for a highway project
in the late '60s.
A few short years later, the Layton School closed.
The doors shut on a life's endeavor.
The couple remained involved in Milwaukee's community,
with Partridge leading efforts in building senior housing.
Their impact on the city's art scene would live on.
In 1974, a group of former Layton School instructors
started the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design (MIAD).
MIAD continues today
as a world-class art and design school,
training students in understanding what's possible.
A legacy sparked by Charlotte Partridge and Miriam Frink.
- Josie: I discovered what bad--
[whispers] Can I say 'badass?' [laughs]
I discovered what total badasses they were!
These stories are beginning to emerge
that gay and lesbian people
are making a huge difference in our culture.
They're people who blazed a trail
for me to be able to be who I am.
But they're also people who did great things.
- Throughout the early 20th century,
the LGBTQ+ community
made significant, yet unsung contributions
to Wisconsin history.
They were also there to contribute,
to step up when world history turned dark.
As Nazi Germany swept across Europe,
Americans joined the fight for the free world,
including gay men,
hoping their commitment to the war effort
would lead to greater inclusion back home.
But gay soldiers would have to serve in silence.
- Dick Wagner: Gay men were fighting in the service,
even though the service didn't want them.
Unwanted yet undeterred, gay men answered the call.
- Dick Wagner: They not only had to fight the homophobia
of the military system,
but then, they had to fight fascism, too.
- Motivated by the prospect of a freer society after the war,
this was especially true for a young soldier from Rhinelander,
Wally Jordan.
- Dick Wagner: During the war, Wally Jordan
was having gay pen pals
that he was keeping a correspondence with.
- Jordan's letters provided personal insight
into gay men who communicated frankly,
despite the risk of discovery,
sharing their thoughts on the war, hopes for the future.
- Dick Wagner: He writes in these letters
that he has a vision that after the war,
there will be a big national conference of gay men,
where they will proudly proclaim their rights
and demand that they be respected.
After World War II, there could be a better world,
and that better world ought to encompass
the gay men who had been fighting to win the war
for the Allies.
- But a hero's welcome would not be waiting,
even for those who put it all on the line.
[propellers rotating]
- Lieutenant Kenneth Palmer from Edgerton, Wisconsin,
was a decorated war hero,
surviving over 50 dangerous missions,
including a harrowing bombing run over Munich.
As he navigated his B-24 bomber over his target,
the plane took on heavy anti-aircraft fire.
A piece of flak ripped through the nose of his plane,
sending shrapnel flying toward Palmer.
His jacket took the brunt, shredding into pieces.
But the young navigator miraculously walked away
with little more than a few bruises
and a story for the ages.
He quipped, "If they can come that close and not get me,
I'm safe."
[bell ringing]
After the war, Kenneth Palmer returned to college
at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
He and so many of his fellow veterans
were looking to catch up
on the years and opportunities lost to the war.
Palmer studied commerce and served as secretary
and also performer
in the extracurricular theater troupe, the Haresfoot Club.
[applause]
[band plays rousing music]
- Scott Seyforth: Haresfoot was a theatrical organization
that formed on campus in the late 1890s.
- Singers: * Have you ever been to a picture show? No! *
- Scott Seyforth: And they were very popular at the time.
They would perform six, seven, eight sold-out shows.
And they would get on the train,
and they would do a tour.
They thought it was good publicity for the University,
but they didn't like the idea
of sending men and women out together on the road.
It turned into one of these all-male companies
where men played the women's roles.
- Haresfoot Cast: * Follow the girls
* [inaudible]
* Follow the girls
- The Haresfoot motto became
"All our girls are men, yet everyone's a lady."
- Scott Seyforth: They'd go to Eau Claire and La Crosse,
sometimes to St. Paul,
and do their shows.
[men singing]
It was the Wisconsin Idea
in drag.
[applause]
- Dick Wagner: Though the company was predominantly heterosexual,
there were a lot of gay men who were attracted to Haresfoot.
- The theater was a sanctuary.
- Dick Wagner: You have both sexuality and gender identity
all mixed up together.
- The element of drag allowed performers
to experiment with gender roles publicly.
To be expressive about sexuality
under the protection of theatrical satire.
- Dick Wagner: Haresfoot was willing
to push those boundaries.
- In 1948, the Haresfoot Club was celebrating its 50th anniversary
with an original show, Big as Life,
a send-up of the legendary Paul Bunyan myth.
The cast included senior Kenneth Palmer,
donning a red wig to portray the female role of Mabel.
The group's 50th year would be a fateful one.
- Scott Seyforth: A University police officer
found two men making out in a car on campus,
and he arrested them.
In their car was an invitation to a party at a private home.
- Police raided the Adams Street house party
and made arrests on morals and sodomy charges.
- Scott Seyforth: Two of the men involved in that sting operation
were members of Haresfoot.
- Kenneth Palmer was arrested,
his name and address printed in the newspaper.
The press called the home "a den for lewd activities."
- Dick Wagner: On campus, there was concern
about this growing outbreak of homosexuality.
And so, there was an investigation launched
of the Haresfoot theater troupe.
- The investigative committee
called upon psychiatrist Dr. Annette Washburne
for guidance.
- Scott Seyforth: Dr. Washburne had
a classification of homosexuals.
She believed that there were 'pseudo homosexuals'
that could be treated.
'True homosexuals' were a danger on campus,
and she really believed
that the University needed to get rid of those people.
- Kenneth Palmer completed his requirements for graduation.
But at the highest levels of the University,
his degree was denied.
- Scott Seyforth: There's a belief
that to graduate gay men into society
is a stain on the University.
It's appalling.
It's regrettable.
It's unfathomable.
- In 1950, Cold War tensions were brewing in Korea.
War hero Kenneth Palmer anticipated a return to service.
He pleaded with the University to have his degree granted,
emphasizing that it would be unlikely for him
to rise through the officer ranks without a diploma.
Once again, he was denied.
- Fallout from the Haresfoot Scandal
would not end with Palmer.
A silent force would push
the next generation of gay students
deeper into hiding.
- Lewis Bosworth: I was at home in my apartment
one day in 1962,
and the phone rang.
[rotary phone rings]
It was one of my friends.
He explained to me that there was this purge going on
to rid the University of gay male students.
- Scott Seyforth: Lewis Bosworth,
he is one of only two former students
that has ever spoken publicly
about their involvement in the purge.
- The purge was a systematic effort
to identify gay students and staff
and discretely remove them
from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The policy was a carryover from the paranoia of the 1950s,
starting with the Red Scare.
- Joseph McCarthy: Even if there were only one communist
in the State Department,
that would still be one communist too many.
- Which led to the Lavender Scare,
a campaign to ban homosexuals
from working in the federal government.
- Ashley Brown: Gays and lesbians
really became the scapegoats.
It is assumed that gay men and lesbians
are actually threats to national security
and that they can be blackmailed.
- The hunt for homosexuals at the University
began as a response to the Haresfoot scandal.
Fourteen years later, in 1962,
the purge pressed on.
- Dick Wagner: The Dean of men, Dean Zillman,
started to compile a list
of hundreds of male homosexuals on campus.
And he would call people in and ask them to name names,
which was clearly a McCarthy-type tactic.
- Theodore Zillman had been an attorney
and personally questioned suspected homosexuals.
Heavy consequences awaited those who confessed.
- Dick Wagner: The University would inform parents,
basically, would force the kids to come out.
- Scott Seyforth: They were ruining people's lives.
Kicking out people right before graduation.
There are cases of students attempting suicide.
You read these transcripts.
It's heartbreaking.
- One name on Zillman's list was sophomore Lewis Bosworth.
- Lewis Bosworth: I was getting calls from the Dean's office
to come in,
and I ignored it as long as I could,
simply on the grounds that it wasn't any of their business.
- Scott Seyforth: Dean Zillman didn't like it
when people didn't respond to his request.
- Lewis Bosworth: A detective
from the University Police
came to my place of employment and threatened me.
And so, I finally did go to the Dean of Men's office.
They certainly were a whole lot worried
about gay men, young men.
- Scott Seyforth: Dean Zillman interrogated him.
It must have been terrifying to be on the receiving end
of an interrogation about your sexuality
in the 1960s.
- Lewis Bosworth: I was afraid that I might be expelled.
Well, I lied through my teeth
when he asked me if I was homosexual.
Since I denied everything,
there wasn't anything they could do with me.
- But Dean Zillman had other plans.
- Lewis Bosworth: I had been accepted
to a program abroad, a junior year abroad program.
Well, they reneged on that.
They took away the scholarship.
I graduated in '64.
There were other people involved in that
who fared less well than I did.
- Hunted, harassed,
the University's years-long purge
ensured that hundreds of gay students
would never make it to graduation.
- Lewis Bosworth: It was important
to their quote-unquote investigation
to get as many names on their list as they could,
and I refused to do that.
I didn't give them any names.
- Defiant in the face of bigotry,
Lewis Bosworth went on to become an outspoken activist.
He later returned to UW-Madison
and built a career centered on welcoming students,
helping them navigate the college experience
rather than kicking them out.
[birds chirping]
- Scott Seyforth: It was spring of 2013.
I went into the LGBTQ+ graduation ceremony.
And sitting at one of the tables
was Lewis Bosworth, sitting by himself.
I was stunned.
I said, "Lewis, what is it like for you to be at this?"
He says, "Scott, it's unimaginable.
"When I was this age,
this would have been unimaginable."
- Dick Wagner: One of the amazing things about Wisconsin
is that early on, gay and lesbian people
found ways to affirm their own identity.
In their own way,
they could achieve a certain amount of liberation.
- Kai Pyle: You can learn to understand people
if you know their history.
- A history often hidden.
But history would soon be made out in the open.
- Ashley Brown: Well, the battles never end.
There are forces really that come together
that try to turn the tide.
- A movement to be part of the American story.
To no longer live a hidden life.
- Dick Wagner: People were liberating themselves,
knowing that their lives were something
that they had to live and were valid to live.
*
- Dick Wagner: Wisconsin has been a trailblazer
in ways that very few people understand.
And that's an important story to tell.
[crowd shouting]
- The 1960s sparked a sea of social change
across America .
With it, the gay rights movement.
- Judy Greenspan: We often hear about what happened in San Francisco,
what happened in New York City.
But we don't hear about what happened in Wisconsin.
- In Wisconsin, LGBTQ+ people
were ready to make a statement about freedom,
to live openly,
and to change American history.
But it all began
with a distinctly Wisconsin institution--
the neighborhood bar.
*
- Dick Wagner: Taverns are ubiquitous in Wisconsin.
- Michail Takach: Wisconsin really was a breeding ground
for bars of all different kinds.
There were bars that were Serbian.
There were bars that were African American.
There were bars that were Polish.
So, the idea of there being bars dedicated to gay people
shouldn't be surprising to anyone.
- In the post-World War II era,
gay bars began to find a footing among a booming population.
Though intense secrecy
surrounded their existence,
they started to play a pivotal role in LGBTQ+ lives.
- Michail Takach: They went there to find community.
They went there to find love.
They went there to find hope.
- Víctor Macías-González: You make friends, develop networks,
and gradually begin to develop
knowledge of what the gay world is.
- Dick Wagner: About the only place you could actually be gay
since you had to be straight at work and in your family
was at a gay bar.
- The bars themselves kept a low profile,
hoping to avoid attention from the police.
- Víctor Macías-González: It's almost like
a holdover from the speakeasy culture.
It won't be marked. Right?
The entrance is in the back.
If they don't recognize you,
they won't let you in sort of a thing.
- Dick Wagner: It was not uncommon for police raids to occur
in gay bars. [police sirens]
The enforcement of norms and homophobia
was a routine activity in those days.
- The police could carry out genital searches.
Same-sex dancing could lead to an arrest.
And bar owners could lose their license
if caught serving homosexuals.
- Michail Takach: The consequences were really extreme,
and people still dared to live their best life.
They still went out looking for each other,
eager to find each other in a world
that was actively trying to shut them down.
- In the summer of 1969, in New York City,
six days of protests
and clashes with law enforcement
erupted following a police raid
of The Stonewall Inn,
a local gay club.
The Stonewall Uprising would become famous as the catalyst
for the gay rights movement in America.
But anger had been brewing across the country
well before Stonewall became a flash point.
[rumbling skies]
- Michail Takach: Eight years before Stonewall,
the Black Nite Bar was the scene
of the first LGBTQ uprising in Wisconsin history.
[thunder claps]
- A rainy August 5, 1961.
After a night out on the town, three sailors found themselves
outside the Milwaukee gay bar, The Black Nite.
The servicemen had been sent there on a dare.
When asked to show their ID at the door, they panicked,
dragged the bouncer outside,
and attacked him.
A nearby bar patron
refused to stand by and do nothing.
- Michail Takach: The heroine of The Black Nite was Josie Carter,
an African American
gender non-conforming queen of color.
- Josie Carter: I'm Josie Carter.
And, oh gosh, look out! [shrieks warmly]
- Michail Takach: Josie ran out there with a beer bottle in each hand
and knocked one of the sailors unconscious
and hit the other one over the head.
[glass shattering, shouting]
They dragged their friends out of there
and said they'd be coming back
to teach gay people a lesson.
- Bullied as a child,
a survivor of sexual violence,
Josie Carter refused to be harassed any longer.
- Josie Carter: I have to be me.
If I can't be me, what the hell?
- Michail Takach: Josie really was everyone's best friend.
- For Josie Carter and her friends,
The Black Nite Bar was a second home,
a place worth fighting for.
- Josie Carter: Just let me live my life, and you live yours.
And we'll get along beautifully.
- She warned the others in the bar about the attack,
rallying them to stand their ground.
- Michail Takach: People got really mad
because they were like, "We have this one space.
"We have this one space in Milwaukee
"we can go and be ourselves
"and dress however we want and express however we want.
And now, they're coming in here and harassing us."
And Josie's response was, "We don't run from a fight."
- Josie Carter: I'm not a runner.
I mean, the high heels... I'm sorry.
I do not run.
- The sailors returned
with about a dozen others in reinforcements,
but were in for a surprise.
- Michail Takach: The sailors were met by 74 bar patrons
who were mad as hell and not taking it anymore.
[angry shouting]
- The two sides clashed.
- Michail Takach: The brawl literally destroyed the bar.
All the windows were broken.
All the glass in the bar was broken.
Everything was just destroyed.
[police siren]
- The police broke up the fight
and arrested the three sailors.
The violence that night drove the headlines.
But a larger message was sent.
- Michail Takach: Other gay people
saw news clippings about "The Black Nite Brawl"
and said, "Oh, my gosh, there are people like me.
"And they're not putting up with it.
And they are fighting back."
This was a big deal in 1961.
- Beyond a place of refuge,
the gay bar became a symbol of liberation,
galvanizing a community.
- Víctor Macías-González: There wouldn't be a gay movement without gay bars.
- Michail Takach: The Black Nite
was the first in a series of dominoes that fell
that really advanced Wisconsin
on the national landscape
in terms of gay rights, gay protections,
and gay awareness.
- But the fight for equality
was only just beginning.
And an age of activism would soon follow.
[angry crowd]
- Dick Wagner: The '60s had seen a whole range of activism
here in Wisconsin.
You had the anti-war movement,
which was very strong on the Madison campus.
In Milwaukee, you had a push for Black Civil Rights.
There was a sense that there was this activism,
which was a way to change things.
- Protester: Sisterhood is powerful!
- A generation began to rise up
during a time of political and social strife.
Advancing a variety of movements,
including gay rights.
- Dick Wagner: There was this impetus
that it was time to do something.
Stonewall sent that signal, and people responded to it.
- In 1969, TIME magazine's cover story,
"The Homosexual in America,"
put gay life into the national conversation.
This inspired an anonymous writer
at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
to publish an open letter in the campus paper
calling for homosexuals to band together.
- Scott Seyforth: They started by calling themselves
the Madison Alliance for Homosexual Equality.
*
- Dick Wagner: The Madison Alliance for Homosexuality Equality
was recognized as the first gay organization in Wisconsin.
- Scott Seyforth: Just months after Stonewall,
they were on the local news channel.
You know, out queers are on television
in the state of Wisconsin.
In March, they hold the first publicly announced gay dance.
They had the first protest.
- The group protested outside a Madison theater
playing the film The Boys in the Band.
- Dick Wagner: They felt it depicted self-loathing homosexuals.
The early activists particularly
found that despicable as a portrayal.
- Film: You're a sad and pathetic man.
You're a homosexual, and you don't want to be.
But there's nothing you can do to change it.
- Dick Wagner: While they were picketing,
they heard shouts of "faggots"
from young kids in cars driving by.
But it was very brave to do that kind of public action.
To go out and be visible homosexuals in the community.
You found other people who were willing to be out,
and that gave you strength.
- By 1971, the group had adopted the name
"the Gay Liberation Front"
and had been attracting new members across campus,
including an anti-war activist named Judy Greenspan.
- Judy Greenspan: I can't count the number of times I was tear gassed.
[explosion, shouting]
There was, like, a revolutionary spirit on campus.
We were all part of this progressive movement,
and it was a massive movement.
- A New Jersey native,
Judy Greenspan came to school at UW-Madison
drawn by the anti-war movement.
Finding like-minded people fighting for a cause,
Greenspan was still looking for something more.
Searching for other lesbians...
- Judy Greenspan: So, I found out
where the Gay Liberation Front was meeting.
I went to a meeting, and they were literally
about forty-five young men...
and one woman.
I just said, "This is ridiculous."
- Determined to build a sisterhood,
Judy Greenspan and a friend
began to post fliers on campus,
calling for lesbians to come together.
What Greenspan did not expect
was the reaction from comrades
in the anti-war movement
when they saw the fliers.
- Judy Greenspan: People would say, "Oh, what are you organizing?"
And they'd look at it, and their jaw would drop.
And then, they'd sort of walk away.
The amount of homophobia in the anti-war movement
was, I thought was pretty deep.
I don't see the dichotomy
between being a political person fighting for social change
and being queer.
I don't; I think they're-- they're together.
- Greenspan's grassroots organizing
helped form the group
that would become known as Madison Lesbians.
- Judy Greenspan: We didn't have the community.
We had to build the community.
And we just did it the best that we could.
You know, could somebody have done it better?
Probably. [laughs]
But we did it; We did it.
[laughs]
- Together, Madison Lesbians and the Gay Liberation Front
traveled around the state,
working with emerging gay organizations
at other college campuses on LGBTQ+ issues.
But at home,
they would find themselves locked out
when students at Madison East High
invited Greenspan to speak.
- Dick Wagner: The principal ruled that "No,
out lesbian Judy Greenspan couldn't come and speak."
In fact, the Madison Principals' Council ruled
that they wouldn't allow any homosexual speakers
in the high schools.
- Judy Greenspan: And the school board totally backed him up on it.
Everybody would say, "Oh, yeah.
"I mean, that's a no-brainer.
"Gay people are sick; They're ill.
"It's illegal.
Can't let them into schools."
- The ban not only kept gays and lesbians out,
but also put any closeted students or teachers at risk.
The Madison Lesbians and activist Judy Greenspan
decided to take a stand for gay rights.
- Judy Greenspan: We fought back
by running an openly lesbian candidate
for school board.
And I said, "Oh, yeah, I'll do it."
So, as a lesbian, I could not go into the schools.
I couldn't speak to the students.
I couldn't get through the door.
But as a candidate,
they would not be able to deny me entrance.
- Dick Wagner: As a candidate, she would appear on forums
that were in the high school
and be able to debate.
It was a very inventive way
to challenge the ruling of the principal.
- Judy Greenspan: We were not running to be part of the political system.
But we really ran as a way to protest
what we thought is a horrible injustice.
- Greenspan would not win the 1973 school board election.
But would make history
as the first out lesbian to run for public office in America.
And the first in a long line of LGBTQ+ people
who sought office in Wisconsin.
- Dick Wagner: Wisconsin is the only state
to have elected three out congresspeople.
Steve Gunderson, a Republican.
Mark Pocan, a Democrat.
And the first U.S. out Senator, Tammy Baldwin.
- For Judy Greenspan, it was about seeking justice.
Taking a public stance for those who couldn't.
- Judy Greenspan: It was definitely
one of the proudest things that I have done in my life.
- Radio Host: Welcome once again to Gay Perspective,
the radio voice of Gay People's Union.
We're going to be interviewing a young lady
who happens to be a homosexual.
But first, let's have a little music.
*
[cue ball strikes]
- The nation's first LGBTQ+ radio program,
Gay Perspective, hit the airwaves in 1971.
- Host: This program will discuss a gay perspective.
- Produced in Milwaukee by the activist organization
Gay People's Union to serve a community finding its voice.
- Host: Today, throughout the country, homosexuals
are clamoring for their rights.
- Michail Takach: Within 10 years of the Black Nite Brawl,
Milwaukee had really come together
as a community of LGBT people looking to
not just find each other socially
but to socially activate and organize.
One of the organizations
that came out of this era was Gay People's Union.
- Gay People's Union was founded in 1971
by two openly gay men,
Eldon Murray and Alyn Hess.
- Brice Smith: Being able to be openly gay,
they were able to do so much work
for the community and for the Gay Liberation Movement.
- Michail Takach: This was a time where
people could be fired from their job
just for being gay.
- Eldon Murray, who served in Korea,
then worked as a stockbroker,
was quoted, "My clients didn't care
"as long as I made money for them.
"I could stand up and be openly gay
when few people could."
- Standing alongside him was gay rights crusader Alyn Hess,
a landscape architect turned social activist.
- Michail Takach: They established the first gay crisis hotline
in Milwaukee.
They opened the first gay community center.
And they also fought with local newspapers
about printing the names
of people arrested for disorderly conduct
and got them to end that policy,
which was a lifesaver for many, many gay people.
- Dick Wagner: They were remarkable pioneers
in the fight for gay rights.
- Michail Takach: They really changed Milwaukee for the better.
- Along with their radio program,
Gay People's Union established GPU News ,
A newspaper written by and for LGBTQ+ people.
The publication found a national audience
and introduced readers to singular voices,
like columnist and trans pioneer Lou Sullivan.
- Brice Smith: Lou Sullivan wrote articles on historical figures.
People with whom he identified.
People who are assigned female at birth
but had lived as men.
He very much recognized and appreciated
how important history is
to an individual's identity.
- Lou Sullivan grew up in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.
His fourth birthday party was a memorable day.
- Brice Smith: It was a Davy Crockett-themed birthday party.
Lou always remembered
that when he put on that Davy Crockett costume,
he really felt like he was Davy Crockett.
His life intersected with so many of the key moments
in the Baby Boomer generation.
He liked to brag that
he was the most "Beatled" kid at his school
'cause he knew more about The Beatles than anyone.
His idol became Bob Dylan.
And he would wear these cowboy boots, bell-bottom jeans.
As he moved into his early twenties then, his idol became,
incidentally, his namesake.
[laughs] The rock star Lou Reed.
- Lou Sullivan donned a leather jacket,
embraced a new identity,
and began to live life as a gay trans man.
- Brice Smith: A lot of people assigned female at birth
were really into these pop culture icons:
the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed.
But what was different with Lou
is that he both wanted these men,
and also wanted to be them simultaneously.
So, the lines between desire and identification
were very blurred for him.
- Sullivan underwent a mastectomy
and received hormone therapy while considering
a gender-affirming surgery for years.
And although the surgery
was an established medical practice by the 1970s,
Lou Sullivan's unique request was denied.
- Lou Sullivan: I was told that my case was too unusual,
that they had never heard of a female-to-male
who wanted to be a gay man,
that they did not want to be the first to operate
and deal with such a person.
- Brice Smith: His youngest brother, Patrick,
died in a motorcycle accident.
This is when he realized, "You know what?
"We don't have that long.
"If I were lying on my deathbed,
"I would regret not transitioning.
This is something I've got to do."
- For nearly a decade,
Sullivan pleaded the case to medical professionals
that someone could be a trans man and also a homosexual.
And in 1986, he finally prevailed.
A doctor in San Francisco
agreed to perform the gender-affirming surgery,
charting new territory in the medical field.
- Brice Smith: As soon as he found someone willing to help him,
then he just shouted from the rooftops
and spread the word.
It spread like wildfire through the trans community.
- Lou Sullivan published a groundbreaking guidebook
to help both doctors and trans people
bridge the gap between sexual orientation and gender identity.
Sullivan also shared first-hand experiences
with the trans community through his female-to-male newsletter.
- Lou Sullivan: As long as no one else is talking about it,
it's going to be forever silent,
and no one is going to hear about it.
I wanted to connect with people
in feeling like an honest person with people.
I just don't see any reason to hide it.
- Brice Smith: Lou was able to be there for countless trans men.
There's just nothing like moving in the world
and having everyone see you as you know you should be seen,
as you have known yourself to be for so long.
- Lou Sullivan: I spent so many years
trying to figure out a place in society.
Finally, I could breathe.
It felt so good.
- Dick Wagner: People who had decided
to lead their authentic lives in Wisconsin
had a sense that there were possibilities,
[cheering]
including making marriage equality a national reality.
- Patrick Farabaugh: Before marriage equality
became a big national movement,
one of the first places
to actually challenge for the right to marry
was Milwaukee in the '70s.
[disco music]
- In 1971,
Milwaukee natives Donna Burkett and Manonia Evans
went to the county clerk's office
to apply for a marriage license.
The young lesbian couple was promptly denied.
- Reporter: When did you decide to take these steps,
and how did you come about that decision?
- Manonia Evans: Well, we decided this summer
that we would like to get married,
and there shouldn't be any reason
why we shouldn't be able to get a license.
- A preacher's daughter,
Manonia Evans was a junior in college
when she met housing rights activist Donna Burkett
in a gay bar in Milwaukee's north side.
Two years later, they would make history.
- Kristen Whitson: The act of
applying for a marriage license as two women
got a lot of media attention.
- Jet magazine ran a feature on the young Milwaukee couple.
Their story was also picked up
by lesbian and gay publications
from around the country.
- Patrick Farabaugh: They were at the front of the movement
at that period in time.
- Dick Wagner: The couple
was willing to be public about their wish to be married,
which was significant.
- Kristen Whitson: It really was a big part of the public understanding
of what same-sex couples wanted,
which was really just what everybody else had.
- Radio Host: Donna and Manonia,
welcome to Gay Perspective.
And we welcome you to our program to express your views.
- Manonia Evans: We're people just like anybody else.
And we have feelings, too.
- Donna Burkett: I love her, and I don't care who knows.
It's not something that I want to hide.
Love is not meant to be hidden,
and I won't hide it.
- Patrick Farabaugh: Donna Burkett was like, "Yeah, well,
"that's what you do when you love somebody.
You go, and you marry them."
- Dick Wagner: She felt that she had this right
and that she wasn't about to accept being denied it.
- Burkett and Evans challenged for the right to marry.
They filed a federal lawsuit
on the grounds that the denial of marital benefits
did not afford the couple equal protection
under the Constitution,
a legal argument ahead of its time.
- Donna Burkett: They shouldn't have any laws
on who you can marry
or who you can't marry.
That's none of their business.
If we're living together, we're sharing our money,
then we should have some protection.
- Kristen Whitson: Donna and Manonia said
that they felt they were missing out on tax benefits
by not being allowed to marry,
which is true.
That was a significant part of the fight for marriage equality
was to have the same civil rights
that every other married couple had.
- The young couple's visionary legal challenge
regarding marital benefits
was a predecessor for legalizing same-sex marriage nationally
44 years later in 2015.
[cheering]
A landmark civil rights case
granting equal protection to same-sex couples.
And though Burkett and Evans' lawsuit
was eventually dismissed on technical grounds,
and the couple was refused a legal marriage,
their love for each other would not be denied.
- Reporter: Whether or not they obtain a marriage license,
they will be married
Christmas Day at St. Nicholas Church in Milwaukee.
[cheering]
- Pastor: Well, God loves all people.
Here are two people,
and He blesses their love for each other.
And so, that's what His church is about
is blessing this union, which is sacred of itself.
- Burkett and Evans' story
would ultimately draw national attention
to marriage equality,
making a statement not only about love,
but also a statement about civil rights for LGBTQ+ people.
- Kristen Whitson: Queer people who have had to struggle
with fewer rights than their heterosexual counterparts
had never thought of even trying to apply for a marriage license
before they read about Donna and Manonia trying to do it.
And that was an idea planted in their heads
as something that they could fight for in the future.
- Dick Wagner: It was something
that would have been unthinkable before Stonewall.
- Manonia Evans: We want more out of life.
This is something really worth fighting for.
[delicate piano]
[poignant piano music]
- Dick Wagner: In Wisconsin,
you repeatedly had lesbian and gay publishers and editors
who felt the need to have these gay publications here.
Gay Endeavor, Escape, In Step,
Hag Rag, Wisconsin Light.
They were an important part
of building community in this state.
- These publications often reflected and spoke to
specific groups within the growing LGBTQ+ community.
- Kristen Whitson: "Bi" question mark, "Shy" question mark, "Why" question mark,
as in "Why are you shy to be bi?"
It was an organization
to recognize visibility and advocacy for bisexuals.
They published a newsletter called Bi-Lines.
- Dick Wagner: It had a little fun in its pages in that regard.
But again, it was an example
of the need for an expression of the community
and a physical manifestation of the community in a publication.
- Patrick Farabaugh: You needed something in community
that could take care of and prioritize queer voices
in a way that supported them,
created space for them to explore their identity,
and just educate them around cultural issues
as basic as literally just finding each other.
[electronic pop music]
- Dick Wagner: Leaping La Crosse News was a smaller newsletter
that was published by the lesbian community in La Crosse.
It was published for decades in that area.
- The Leaping La Crosse News was established in 1979,
and became an ongoing record of vibrant lesbian life
outside of Wisconsin's larger cities.
- Mary O'Sullivan: It was the way a lot of women found us.
And they'd say, "Holy smoke!
I didn't know there were any lesbians in La Crosse."
They were just astonished that
there could be anything happening
in this little town of 50,000 people.
- The editor of the newsletter, Mary O'Sullivan,
was a college instructor
who grew up in a supportive family.
In La Crosse, she hoped to build
that same support for other women.
- Mary O'Sullivan: Pretty soon, we had a thriving community of women
who all knew each other and socialized.
- The Leaping La Crosse News
opened a whole new world
for fellow lesbians,
revealing an underground culture
that stretched well beyond the bar scene.
- Mary O'Sullivan: If you get lesbians together,
the first thing they are going to do
is organize potlucks and groups.
[chuckles]
- The monthly newsletter
connected the women with social events,
ran news stories impacting the lesbian community,
and even covered entertainment and sports.
- Mary O'Sullivan: Just being able to pick up an eight-page newsletter
that talked about people like them and with like interests,
that was a huge thing.
- In 1979, Mary O'Sullivan and some of her friends
discovered that a local formal wear shop
had been stockpiling discontinued tuxedos for years.
Inspiration soon struck!
- Mary O'Sullivan: We could buy these tuxes
for like five bucks for the whole thing,
and we could have a formal wear party.
- For some, it was the prom that never was.
For others, a great night out, akin to a costume party.
But for all, a celebration,
a place of acceptance.
- Mary O'Sullivan: We weren't trying to be men or masculine.
We were just trying to question
the every day and the accepted.
It was an outrageous thing to do.
But that was a really empowering kind of experience.
- The annual tux party continued for a decade,
helping La Crosse to later be named
the fifth best place in the U.S. for lesbians to live,
according to Girlfriends magazine in 2002.
The tight-knit group in the small Wisconsin community
had created a place all their own.
- Mary O'Sullivan: It was like a big family.
And for some women,
we were their family because they got kicked out.
The world wasn't all that safe then.
- Kristen Whitson: Queer people often feel more comfortable
with other queer people.
They didn't have to worry about being bullied or harassed.
They know that their experiences are not singular,
that they are not alone.
- Often closeted,
people all across Wisconsin were finding each other.
Connecting in a world that had marginalized them.
Persevering
in building meaningful and enriching lives.
- Mary O'Sullivan: We had a real world, too.
- Yet, by the 1970s,
there were still no laws in America
that protected those lives.
Homosexuals were often regarded as criminals.
In Wisconsin, the pursuit of equal rights
would bring together an unlikely group
on the cusp of making history.
- Dick Wagner: It was time to speak out for homosexuals.
- Assemblyman Lloyd Barbee
was an ally to the gay rights movement.
Before his time in the Legislature,
Barbee was a civil rights attorney
who fought housing discrimination
and led the effort
to desegregate Milwaukee's public schools.
Elected to the Wisconsin State Assembly in 1964,
he was the only African American
in either house of the Legislature.
- Dick Wagner: Barbee felt deeply about the American promise
that should be extended to all who were a part of society.
In his view, not only African Americans,
but homosexuals deserved rights, as well.
- Barbee was a bold pioneer for social reform
and was the first legislator to challenge
the sex laws in Wisconsin,
calling to decriminalize homosexuality
and legalize gay marriage.
- David Clarenbach: He was frequently referred to in the press
as "The Outrageous Mr. Barbee"
because he introduced these bills that were
way, way before their time.
But thank goodness he did.
- Dick Wagner: He believed in
introducing legislation to educate folks.
And he was not shy about this.
- David Clarenbach: He stuck to his principles and objectives.
And he took a lot of flak because of that.
- Lloyd Barbee: I think that homosexuals
should not be harassed and beaten down
and brutalized and insulted.
And we should not tolerate it.
- Morality laws
that had been on the books since the 1800s
criminalized a variety of sexual acts;
applying to everyone, not just homosexuals.
- David Clarenbach: Most people didn't recognize
how restrictive Wisconsin statutes were
in criminalizing sex acts that were pretty commonplace.
Things like oral sex,
even between a man and a woman
who were legally, lawfully married,
was a criminal offense in Wisconsin.
- Yet, these morality laws were selectively enforced;
a means to target and prosecute homosexuals.
- David Clarenbach: It was an excuse
for rooting out gays and lesbians and bisexuals
in the state.
- In 1974, at the age of 21,
David Clarenbach was the youngest member
elected to the Wisconsin State Assembly.
- David Clarenbach: I certainly had known that I was gay
before I was elected to public office.
But it wasn't a time when I felt comfortable to come out,
especially as an extraordinarily young candidate.
- Clarenbach grew up in Madison,
his family heavily involved in social reform movements.
His mother, Kathryn, was a co-founder
of the National Organization for Women,
the largest feminist group in America.
In the Legislature,
David Clarenbach teamed up with Lloyd Barbee.
- David Clarenbach: Lloyd Barbee was not just my role model
and my mentor, but he really was a prophet.
- Together, they drove legislation
to completely overhaul
the sex laws in Wisconsin.
But the two men were unsuccessful
in gaining enough support from their fellow lawmakers
to advance such broad reform.
- Lloyd Barbee: It's not the job of the state...
- In 1977, Lloyd Barbee left the Legislature.
- Dick Wagner: Barbee passed the baton on sex reform leadership
to David.
- Rather than introducing bills calling for sweeping change,
Clarenbach instead
focused on single-issue legislation.
He would land on the Consenting Adults Bill,
a law which would repeal
the morality laws that criminalized homosexuality.
- David Clarenbach: They want those
in violation of those statutes put in jail.
- Dick Wagner: The basic premise of homophobia
is that homosexuals are criminals.
- The Consenting Adults Bill faced an uphill battle,
taking Clarenbach years to advance it.
- David Clarenbach: Each session, it gained a little more traction.
It kept moving forward.
And then, finally, in 1981,
the Consenting Adults Law
came to a vote in the Assembly,
and we lost it by one vote.
- A narrow defeat.
But with bipartisan support,
hope was still alive.
- David Clarenbach: This was a question of momentum.
- Dick Wagner: The bill had
both Republicans and Democrats supporting it.
- David Clarenbach: It proved a legislator
could cast a vote for gay rights,
and not feel that they're jeopardizing
their own reelection campaign.
- In Wisconsin, an opportunity was within reach.
[pounds gavel]
Clarenbach signed on to co-sponsor
a nondiscrimination gay rights bill,
which would add sexual orientation
to protected nondiscrimination categories
such as race, age, and religion,
ensuring someone could not be fired
from their job
or denied a mortgage for being homosexual.
For the bill to succeed,
an expansive coalition of support
would need to be built from the ground up.
- David Clarenbach: The gay rights movement would not have advanced
if it weren't for gay bars and a gay press.
- The gay press kept people informed,
tracking the progress of the bill through the Legislature,
while gay bars became a place for people to organize,
creating an outreach effort
to build public support for the bill.
However, to convince some lawmakers who were on the fence,
the gay rights movement needed to gain an unlikely ally:
one that had condemned homosexuality for centuries.
- David Clarenbach: We needed to get religious support
from the mainstream religious community.
[nuns praying]
- The leader in the outreach effort was Leon Rouse,
a UW-Milwaukee student activist
who organized a supportive group of pastors and rabbis.
- Dick Wagner: You had to knock on doors and say,
"Tell us what you think
about homosexuals and about homosexual issues."
It took some bravery to start knocking on those doors.
- Rouse was short of a vital endorsement.
The head of Milwaukee's Catholic Church,
Archbishop Rembert Weakland.
After weeks of attending mass,
Rouse finally approached the archbishop with his pitch.
- Dick Wagner: It's not whether homosexuality is being approved.
It's whether discrimination is tolerable.
- David Clarenbach: Could discrimination and bigotry be tolerated
against any group in our society?
That question turned the tide.
- Archbishop Weakland pledged his support.
- Dick Wagner: Archbishop Weakland said that
"We have to see gay people
"not as an enemy to be battered down,
but as persons worthy of respect and friendship."
- David Clarenbach: It was decisive.
Earth-shattering that a Catholic Archbishop
would advocate in such a public way.
- In December of 1981,
the gay rights nondiscrimination bill
passed in the Wisconsin Assembly.
Moving on to the state Senate for a final vote.
- David Clarenbach: It was going to be close,
and we had one shot at this.
- On that fateful day,
the LGBTQ+ community would not stand alone.
- David Clarenbach: Well, to be able to sit in the Senate chambers
and see the galleries packed with nuns and priests
and other religious leaders
sent the message that it was a moral statement
to oppose discrimination and bigotry
against any group in our society.
- The nondiscrimination bill passed in the Senate
with religious backing and bipartisan support.
On February 25, 1982,
the nation's first gay rights legislation
was signed into law
by Wisconsin Republican governor Lee Sherman Dreyfus.
- Dick Wagner: It was an exciting moment.
- David Clarenbach: We accomplished something
that no one thought was possible.
No one would have guessed in 1982
that of all states,
Wisconsin would be the first state in the nation
to enact civil rights protections
for gays and lesbians.
But Wisconsin became known as "the gay rights state."
- Crowd chanting: Wis-con-sin, gay rights state, Wis-con-sin, gay rights state,
- Within a year,
Wisconsin passed the Consenting Adults Bill,
followed by three additional landmark pieces of legislation
protecting civil rights.
All starting with a vision for the future,
the courage to bridge a gap,
and the belief in equality.
- David Clarenbach: You did not have to be a female
to believe in equal rights for women
any more than you needed to be LGBT or Q
to be supportive of gay and lesbian civil rights.
Civil rights are for everyone.
[poignant piano]
[heart monitor beeping]
- Dave Iverson: Wisconsin registered its first official case of AIDS,
an epidemic that has resulted in nearly 500 deaths,
mostly among homosexual men.
- David Clarenbach: The AIDS crisis hit like a bolt of lightning.
- Dick Wagner: We just felt that we were under siege.
Seeing our community dying around us.
- Among that community was Alyn Hess,
co-founder of Gay People's Union.
And in San Francisco,
Wisconsin native and trans pioneer Lou Sullivan.
- Lou Sullivan: I discovered that I had AIDS.
I was diagnosed with AIDS.
- Brice Smith: It was just heartbreaking,
gut-wrenching.
So many obstacles to overcome in order to transition,
only to be diagnosed as having AIDS.
- Dick Wagner: They tried to deny him to live as a homosexual,
but he would die as a homosexual.
- From the outset of the AIDS crisis,
a second epidemic was born;
one of fear.
- We got a lot of homophobia floating around,
and it doesn't surprise me.
- It's almost like being a leper in olden times.
You go put them in the dirtiest parts of the village
and keep them away from society.
[heart monitor beeping]
- Person with AIDS: I wouldn't even feel free to hug somebody.
Just because they got the scare in you, I guess.
I don't know.
[monitor beeping]
- As the disease spread throughout the country,
Wisconsin remained committed as the "gay rights state."
In 1983, newly-elected governor, Tony Earl,
formed the Council on Gay and Lesbian Issues.
A group that helped lay the groundwork
for a public health response to the deadly disease.
- David Clarenbach: Governor Earl was such an outspoken supporter
of the gay and lesbian community
- By 1985,
he signed legislation that protected the confidentiality
of people who tested for the virus.
And in 1990,
the state's next governor, Tommy Thompson,
signed the AIDS Bill of Rights,
which prohibited insurance companies
from discriminating against people with AIDS.
- Anchor: The bill is believed
to be the first of its kind in the country.
- David Clarenbach: People weren't going to be fired from their jobs
or denied health insurance coverage
because of their HIV status.
- Legal protections were guaranteed in Wisconsin.
But with no cure,
the deadly crisis continued into a second decade.
- Dave Iverson: Reporting on AIDS is a little like reporting on war:
a grim listing of the latest statistics.
- David Clarenbach: Unfortunately, ongoing, continuing crises
are easily forgotten.
- Protester: We're here today to protest
the city of Milwaukee's
callous indifference to the AIDS crisis.
- The next generation of activists
fought public fatigue
with confrontational and attention-grabbing actions.
- Anchor: AIDS activists passed out
more condoms and pamphlets
at a Milwaukee high school this morning.
- David Clarenbach: Organizations like ACT UP
kept the spotlight focused on the AIDS Crisis
and how it was affecting the real lives of real people.
- In Madison,
ACT UP led a massive protest
over conditions for inmates with AIDS.
The event brought hundreds to the Capitol,
including future advice columnist Dan Savage
and longtime activist Judy Greenspan.
- Judy Greenspan: AIDS in prison is a death sentence.
I visited a lot of prisons.
I met with a lot of prisoners with HIV.
They were not getting medications.
They were being segregated.
- Dick Wagner: All they got for lunch and dinner
was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
that would be shoved at them.
- ACT UP responded with a special delivery
to the State Capitol.
Hundreds of peanut butter sandwiches
and a series of public protests.
[protester calls out on megaphone]
- Judy Greenspan: It was an in-your-face action to say,
"Look, stop this.
It's outrageous".
How they were treating
prisoners with HIV was absolutely horrible.
[crowd chanting "Shame, shame, shame!"]
- Dick Wagner: The activism and the legislative victories
were an effort to try and do something positive
in the face of what was still a terrible epidemic
for the state to face.
- Kristen Whitson: There's not a silver lining to it.
But if there was one,
it's that the LGBTQ+ community
was united, galvanized, and motivated.
- The spirit of activism continued into the 1990s.
Protestors in Wisconsin led a nationwide effort
to push back
against the military's refusal to accept gays and lesbians.
In 2011, LGBTQ+ people could finally serve openly.
And in 2022, Senator Tammy Baldwin
guided federal legislation that was signed into law,
protecting same-sex marriage,
part of the ongoing pursuit of civil rights.
- Kristen Whitson: People have fought for it,
have overcome the obstacles.
But LGBTQ+ rights are not static.
- Kai Pyle: That fight is still incredibly real and ongoing,
but there's hope.
- Dick Wagner: The progress has just been amazing.
- Mary O'Sullivan: Being able to publicly say
the most important person in my life
is this person right next to me,
and we're going to have a wonderful damn life
for all the years that we've got.
- Brice Smith: Times have changed dramatically.
[laughs]
- Through the struggles,
through the victories,
Wisconsin history was written.
- David Clarenbach: History is made by individuals.
- Ashley Brown: The individuals, they come out of,
they reflect Wisconsin history.
- Michail Takach: Wisconsin is fortunate
to have a lot of LGBTQ heroes
throughout its history.
- Dick Wagner: They had refused to be ashamed of who they were.
It was just powerful.
They were remarkable people.
Brave people.
*
- Announcer: Funding for Wisconsin Pride
is provided by
Park Bank,
S.C. Johnson,
Greater Milwaukee Foundation,
Evjue Foundation,
the charitable arm of the Capital Times,
CUNA Mutual Group,
New Harvest Foundation,
West Foundation,
Paula Bonner and Ann Schaffer,
La Crosse Community Foundation,
MG&E Foundation,
Rogers Behavioral Health,
with additional support from
and with support from
Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programs,
and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.