Season 11: Episode 3: Faygele Ben-Miriam

Making Gay History | LGBTQ Oral Histories from the Archive

Making Gay History

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4.7 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 17 November 2022

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1972, Faygele Ben-Miriam’s penchant for wearing dresses to the office got him fired from his government job in Seattle. The fact that he had recently brought one of the very first same-sex marriage lawsuits was another strike against him. Undeterred, he went back to court and sued his employer. Heads-up: The interview featured in this episode was conducted in 1989. You’ll hear Faygele Ben-Miriam refer to intellectually disabled people using an outdated and now offensive term. Visit our episode webpage for background information, archival photos, and other resources, as well as a transcript of the episode. For exclusive Making Gay History bonus content, join our Patreon community. ——— To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi History Makers, Eric here. A few months ago we launched Making Gay History's Patreon
0:06.0	channel, a place where we're sharing new video interviews never before heard clips from
0:10.5	my archive that didn't make it into the episodes and more. If you're not a member of our Patreon
0:15.3	community yet, I hope you'll join today. Just $5 a month gets you access to these Making
0:20.8	Gay History extras, and you'll support us as we work to bring LGBTQ history to life
0:26.2	through the voices of the people who lived it. Find out more at patreon.com slash making
0:31.6	gay history, or go to makinggayhistory.com and click on the link in our homepage banner.
0:36.9	And thank you so much.
0:38.9	I'm kind of bored with picket lines. I've been on picket lines since the 60s. You know,
0:47.6	there's other ways to get a point across. I prefer to reel a theater myself. Any that
0:52.4	you were involved in? Oh, yeah. One of my favorites was, especially in the days I was
0:58.3	wearing dress, around the days I was wearing dresses. Seattle had just started its tremendous
1:03.8	expansion. There was lots of construction down town and construction workers. Minis
1:08.5	were in style then. Minis skirts. Minis skirts. My favorite style. And these construction
1:14.0	workers would whistle at women. And I would lift back up at the construction worker and
1:18.3	I'd whistle at them. And there were ways that politically, I mean, this helped empower
1:25.3	women. And it also helped that these men could be made to see that this was indeed a two
1:31.5	ways street. Did you get any comments back? Oh, yeah. They'd be pissed as hell.
1:38.2	I'm Eric Marcus and this is Making Gay History. Back in 1988, as I did research for the original
1:51.0	edition of my Making Gay History book, one of the big themes that emerged was how gay and
1:55.8	lesbian people use the legal system to challenge discrimination, including in the military,
2:01.1	employment, child custody, and accommodations. To get advice on who could help me bring
	...

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