Hi, I'm Mark, producer of the podcast. Happy Pride Month. We wanted to share a favorite episode from the archives that we first ran to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Stonewall. Just as a note, Richard Cardillo's story mentions the effects of suicide on a left one. Stay tuned next week for an all-new episode about pride and family. Until then, enjoy.

Welcome to the Moth podcast. I'm your host, Dame Wilburn. This week, we're celebrating Pride Month

and the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, and we wanted to do it right. In the planning

of this episode, we recognized how the story of Stonewall has historically been shaped to exclude

many voices and perspectives. So today, we're hoping to help create a fuller picture. We have two

moth stories and two interviews that we hope will add to your understanding of Stonewall 50. You'll hear

from Martin Boyce, who is at Stonewall on the day of the riot, and at the very

end of the episode, we'll hear from Kay Barrett, a poet and activist continuing the fight

for LGBTQ-plus rights today.

We talked with Martin Boyce in the park on Christopher Street just across the street from Stonewall.

He'll set the scene of what New York City was like for a young gay man 50 years ago before

the Stonewall riots took place and then on that fateful day.

You'll hear that Martin uses the terms queens and street queens as catch-all phrases for a few

different sexualities and gender presentations.

And that was fairly common in the 60s. Martin also refers to the rambles

in Central Park, which is a very wooded area that feels more like a forest than a city park. Here's

Martin. My name is Martin Boys. I'm a storm old veteran. I was born in the old city, the

Phil Noir City, the city of danger, but great excitement.

I came out in the Rambles in Central Park because my father was a cab driver and he couldn't

see me there carrying on with all these queens that I had finally found like a crowd that was

a home, a psychological home.

But I didn't want to appear on the streets.

...