Hi, Making Gay History Family. Eric Marcus here. Eight years ago, a couple of weeks after we launched

our podcast, Donald Trump was first elected to office. We were thunderstruck and scrambled our

planned episode lineup so we could share an interview that we thought would provide at least

some inspiration at a very dark time.

A 1989 interview with Frank Kameney, who was one of the fiercest, most persistent, and most

successful leaders of our movement during the pre-Stonewall era.

So this morning, because here we are again, I re-listened to that episode because I needed a dose of Frank, who was never one to back down from a fight.

And I'd like you to listen again, or for the first time, because that's what we've got ahead of us now.

A monumental fight, the outlines of which we and any casual student of history

can already imagine.

I urge you to listen all the way through to the end, because the emotions I expressed in my

conclusion to the episode are exactly the emotions I feel now.

But if I'm being completely honest, I'm even more dispirited now than I was

then. And I need Frank's words of encouragement, and the words of encouragement I offered when I was

eight years younger than I am now, even more in order to pick myself up off the ground and get ready to do what we all need to do.

For ourselves, for our loved ones, and for the next generation of LGBTQ young people

who are going to need our support as we all join forces to re-bend that arc of the moral universe

away from hate and prejudice and back towards justice.

Here's the Making Gay History episode featuring Frank Kameney that we recorded just two days after the 2016 election.

I'm Eric Marcus and this is Making Gay History.

In 1953, President Dwighty Eisenhower signed an executive order that essentially banned gay people from federal employment.

It was an incredibly paranoid time in our nation's history.

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