0.16. Undoing Silence: Hugh Ryan & The Women's House of Detention
History is Gay
Leigh Pfeffer
4.6 • 536 Ratings
🗓️ 9 January 2023
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this interview episode, Leigh sits down for a conversation with historian and writer Hugh Ryan about his landmark book The Women's House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison. The Women's House of Detention is the story of one building: the people it caged, the neighborhood it changed, and the resistance it inspired. Listen for an extremely enlightening conversation on the unlikely queer community found in a space of incarceration in the heart of New York's Greenwich Village, the ways in which the carceral state specifically targets queer women and transmasculine people, and the case for abolition as prioritizing of systems of care.
Where To Find Hugh Ryan Online:
- www.hughryan.org
- @hughryan on mastodon.lol
- @hugh_ryan on twitter
- @hughoryan on instagram
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We've always been here every single year |
| 0:07.0 | From ancient gays right up to today's see history is queer |
| 0:14.0 | Some think it's a new way |
| 0:18.0 | But we've got something to say. |
| 0:22.8 | History is very, very, very, very, very gay. |
| 0:29.8 | Hello, everyone. |
| 0:31.5 | This is Lee Feffer. |
| 0:32.6 | Welcome to a bonus episode of History is Gay. |
| 0:36.9 | I am here with a wonderful guest that I've wanted to get on |
| 0:40.7 | the show for a while and just kind of, you know, slid into Twitter DMs and be like, hey, |
| 0:46.9 | we're both doing work in the same places and you've got some cool stuff going on. Let's chat. |
| 0:51.8 | So I am here getting ready to talk a little bit with Hugh Ryan. |
| 0:58.0 | Hugh is a writer and a curator and he has a new book, Women's House of Detention, which is a |
| 1:02.8 | queer history of a prison that was once in Greenwich Village. We will talk all about it. He also has |
| 1:08.8 | his first book when Brooklyn was queer that won a 2020 New York City Book Award. And he's also a curator and has done a whole bunch of really wonderful, amazing things, is on the board of some wonderful projects. And I'm really excited to talk with you. Hi, Hugh. Hi, Lee. Thanks for having me on. I agree. History is gay. We can end there. |
| 1:29.3 | History is in fact gay. Yeah, okay, that's it. Thank you, everyone. |
| 1:32.3 | We've imparted all the necessary information. |
| 1:35.3 | Shortest bonus episode in the history of the show. Goodbye. |
| 1:40.3 | Yeah, I had been wanting to, you know, I think we've been kind of existing around each other's circles on Twitter in various places. |
| 1:50.3 | And I'm like, you know, why haven't we actually like talk? |
| 1:52.3 | I think there's been quite a few times where like a friend of a friend has like connected us via email. |
| 1:57.5 | And it's like, by the way. |
... |
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