Hi History Makers, Eric here. A few months ago we launched Making Gay History's Patreon

channel, a place where we're sharing new video interviews never before heard clips from

my archive that didn't make it into the episodes and more. If you're not a member of our Patreon

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And thank you so much.

This episode of Making Gay History contains adult content and strong language. It is not

appropriate for children or for class use below the college level.

Shane O'Neill is interviewing me again. He's a journalist at the New York Times and a friend.

We worked on the coming of age during the AIDS crisis season together and he's once again

turning the tables. He's asking me the questions, recording my oral history. We're on Zoom,

and this time he's taking me back to my mid teens. Shane's asking me about my life in the

new neighborhood we'd moved to in 1974. Jamaica Estates, Queens.

It's almost four years since my father killed himself. My mother used the money that came

to her after the deaths of my father and her mother to buy a house. A house. A skinny

three-story tutor revival on a narrow lot on a leafy street in a fancy neighborhood

that's just two stops in the subway for my old neighborhood. It's a far cry from the

one bedroom apartment we left behind.

Not long after we moved in, there was a knock at our front door. And I saw this smiling

midwestern face with glasses in a tie and a camel-haired coat. And I opened the door

...