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Thanks.

1:07

I'm kind of bored with picket lines. I've been

1:09

on picket lines since

1:11

the sixties. You know, there's other

1:13

ways to get a point across. Mhmm. I

1:15

prefer to really theater myself. Any

1:18

that you were involved in? Oh, yeah.

1:20

One of my favorites was especially

1:23

in the days I was wearing dresses. Around the

1:25

days I was wearing dresses, Seattle

1:27

had just started its tremendous expansion.

1:30

There was lots of construction

1:31

downtown and construction

1:32

workers. Minis

1:34

were in in style then. Minis skirt.

1:36

Minis skirt is my favorite style.

1:38

and these construction workers would visit

1:40

women. And I would look back

1:42

up

1:42

at the construction worker, and I'd visit them.

1:46

And there were ways

1:48

that politically I mean, this

1:50

helped empower women, and it also

1:52

helped that these men could be made

1:54

to see

1:55

that this was indeed a two way

1:57

street.

1:58

Did you get any comments back? Oh,

1:59

yeah. They'd be pissed as hell.

2:08

I'm

2:09

Eric Marcus, and this is making a history.

2:13

Back in nineteen eighty eight, as I did research

2:16

for the original edition of my Making A History

2:18

Book, one of the big themes that

2:20

emerged was how gay and lesbian people

2:22

used the legal system to challenge discrimination,

2:25

including in the military, employment, child

2:27

custody, and accommodations. To

2:30

get advice on who could help me bring some of these

2:32

cases to life, I called Tom

2:34

Stoddart. Tom was the executive

2:36

director of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education

2:39

Fund. the nation's first legal

2:41

organization dedicated to achieving

2:43

full equality for LGBTQ people.

2:46

Tom knew just the activist, Fangela

2:49

Ben Miriam, a transplanted New

2:51

Yorker living in Seattle, who Tom

2:53

called a one person litigation team.

2:56

Most famously, Fayetteville had sued

2:58

the US civil service commission when he was

3:00

fired from his government job in nineteen seventy

3:02

two for, quote, flaunting his homosexuality.

3:05

The year before, Fangela had

3:07

also tested the limits of Washington state's

3:10

marriage statute, which didn't explicitly

3:12

state that marriage had to be between

3:14

a man and a woman. Phagela

3:17

and his friend Paul Barwick applied

3:19

for a license to Mary. When

3:21

they were turned down, Fagola became

3:23

the plaintiff in one of the first same sex

3:25

marriage lawsuits in US history.

3:29

Figolo Ben Miriam was born John Singer

3:31

in nineteen forty four, the oldest

3:33

of four children in a secular Jewish home.

3:36

Leftist political engagement ran in the family.

3:38

His mother Miriam in particular worked

3:41

to advance a wide range of social justice

3:43

causes and ran a planned parenthood

3:45

clinic. Figula inherited

3:47

his mother's radical inclinations, and

3:50

then some. Across the decades,

3:52

he carried his zeal for organizing and

3:54

gay community building from the east

3:56

coast to the Pacific Northwest to the southeast

3:59

and back again. For a

4:01

year and a half, he didn't wear traditionally male

4:03

clothing. and he was something of an uncredited

4:06

spiritual father to the radical fairies

4:08

movement. The gay anti establishment

4:10

group cofounded by Harry Hsieh

4:12

of Managing Society fame. How

4:15

could I not interview him? So

4:18

here's the scene. I arrived at Figla's

4:20

very modest house a mile and a half up

4:22

the hill from downtown Seattle. Figla's

4:25

not what I expect. He's a slight,

4:27

balding, rabbinical looking guy in

4:29

jeans and a well worn sweater. He

4:32

looks like an aging hippie from my old neighborhood

4:34

back in queens. I've been

4:36

invited for dinner, and as I'm welcomed

4:38

into Feigler's home and introduced to his roommates,

4:41

I'm enveloped by the aromas of what

4:43

promises to be a delicious meal.

4:45

Fagin is a great cook, an

4:48

even more accomplished baker. The

4:50

dessert that's baking in the oven even

4:52

rates a rave in my post interview notes.

4:55

incredible, I'll later write.

4:58

We settle in at the dining table where I get

5:00

Fagola miked up. I start

5:03

by asking him about his elementary school

5:05

years on Suburban Long Island.

5:12

Interview with Fangela Ben Miriam

5:15

on Monday, November twentieth nineteen

5:17

eighty nine at six PM at the home

5:19

of Fangela Ben Miriam in Seattle,

5:21

Washington. Interviewer is Eric

5:23

Marcus tape one, side one.

5:26

Was

5:26

Levittown unremarkable? your time

5:28

there? Or were you a troublemaker from the start?

5:31

I did a little bit of trouble making there. It

5:33

was during the Eisenhower years.

5:36

The school prayer was instituted during

5:38

that time and the phrase

5:40

under god was inserted into the

5:42

pledge.

5:43

and our family fought that. I

5:45

fought it as an elementary school student

5:48

by

5:50

not saying it sitting down during the prayer

5:52

and my mother

5:54

politically fought, like, in the PTA

5:56

and outside fought that issue.

5:58

So at one point, one of the local

5:59

Catholic churches was denouncing our

6:02

our family from the pulp, but specifically

6:05

as communists and the

6:07

neighbor kids that they used to play with, you

6:09

know, all of a sudden we're screaming, calming at

6:11

us across street. You were just you

6:13

weren't even a teenager yet. Oh, no. I

6:15

was about

6:16

eight or nine. Uh-huh. Yeah.

6:19

We started

6:20

earlier. I came from a political family.

6:21

Uh-huh. We were

6:23

we were committed to equality, but

6:26

it was it was just and right. And

6:28

along with that, that was part of being

6:30

Jewish, was being involved in

6:33

in all of these struggles. Mhmm.

6:36

I was in a group that was working at

6:39

integration in various ways. I

6:41

traveled in an integrated crowd in

6:43

high school, which

6:45

used to anger some people both black

6:47

and white who were not happy with

6:50

blacks and whites hanging up together and

6:52

socializing. I

6:54

was in

6:55

a crowd that involved a lot that there's a

6:57

lot of interracial dating going on where

7:00

parents were just, you know, parents never

7:02

knew about it. And if they did, that

7:05

was held to pay. Even

7:07

parents who believed in Jen, one of the lawyers for

7:09

the Scottsboro boys, his

7:12

daughter was in my crowd, And

7:15

I remember there, shock and horror

7:17

when she was trying to date a

7:19

black man. She

7:20

was white. She was Jewish.

7:23

My job used

7:25

to be, since

7:26

I was so presentable, I

7:29

used to pretend I was dating these these

7:31

women. and pick them up Friday and

7:33

Saturday night, couple of them, you know,

7:35

sequentially, and get them out of the

7:37

house, and then they could go

7:39

off on their dates with black

7:41

boyfriends. Yes. Uh-huh. Why

7:43

were you some present oh, basically, you're a nice Jewish

7:45

boy? Yes. A nice

7:47

Jewish gay boy, though. Well, I wasn't

7:50

I wasn't let's see if that was high school, I wasn't

7:52

there yet. But I didn't know

7:54

that I was gay till I was eighteen till my

7:56

freshman year of college. Mhmm. So

7:58

I came out in sixty two,

7:59

and October of sixty two was my first

8:02

experience, and also pretty much when I put it

8:04

all together that this is a viable

8:06

option. I didn't

8:08

spend a whole lot of time. I

8:11

didn't waste much time once I realized

8:13

that it was a possibility that two

8:15

men could have sex. And

8:17

I was out to my friends

8:19

throughout most of the sixties. And even

8:21

during being in in the army, my

8:24

family by that time knew. Did you have

8:26

any problem with your friends or family? ah

8:30

My

8:30

mother's position was

8:33

she didn't think you could

8:35

have a happy life and because she

8:37

wanted me to have a happy

8:39

life, and that's why she was

8:41

against it. And

8:43

much later on, she was telling me one of the things

8:45

that hit her was, my god, I'm

8:47

not gonna have any grandchildren. I mean,

8:49

she had three other kids. But,

8:52

you know, it was she knew it was irrational.

8:55

Mhmm.

8:56

My house was in in a lot of ways,

8:58

a sex positive household

9:00

and family. I mean, we were always allowed

9:03

to bring home dates

9:05

of the anders assumed they would be of the

9:07

opposite gender. My sister could do, you know, could

9:09

do that too. It

9:11

wasn't just a boy's only thing.

9:14

But what happened when your parents found out you

9:16

were homosexual? Well,

9:18

I remember once bringing a boyfriend

9:21

home just on a not for

9:23

the night. and my father was

9:25

very upset that I should have brought

9:27

he picked up right away that this was

9:29

my boyfriend, not just a friend. And

9:32

so my father definitely had some

9:36

problems

9:38

coping with me during that

9:40

time. certainly after the

9:42

movement started and as soon as I got

9:44

active, he

9:46

had I

9:49

think he'd come to terms with the fact

9:51

that I was indeed gay, and that

9:53

was maybe alright, but then

9:55

why go out there and announce

9:57

it? But given given

10:00

how we were raised to be

10:02

political and stand up, it just

10:04

seemed perfectly natural to

10:06

me. And, I mean, he even

10:08

even to the end because he's dead now

10:10

when I changed my name to Fagola,

10:13

and I sent a letter home

10:15

because I was living in Seattle the time.

10:17

And it was in a good

10:19

letter, my mother reports, you know, an

10:21

interesting one because I was doing lots

10:23

of things mostly

10:25

movements things. And he enjoyed

10:27

being the letter and he got to the closing.

10:29

And

10:30

saw

10:31

a faginaw. I just took this letter and

10:34

crumpled up through it against the far

10:36

wall. And

10:38

so from that point on, I

10:40

never signed a letter

10:42

home. It was always love

10:45

comma, me. Mhmm.

10:46

I was adamant that

10:48

It

10:50

was he

10:52

wouldn't accept that name, but I wasn't going

10:54

back to the other. Why the name changed? And

10:56

for my for the readers who don't know what

10:58

Phagula means, can you define Phagula for me?

11:00

Okay? Phagula is

11:03

in Oshkinawa's

11:06

Jewish tradition, a

11:08

perfectly valid woman's name

11:10

that in

11:12

my grandparents generation, there were

11:14

women named Birdie, which would have been

11:16

the translation of that. It

11:21

also had the connotations among

11:23

the older readers speaking people.

11:25

And first generation Americans

11:28

who when they wanted to refer to someone who was a

11:30

faggot, but it wasn't proper

11:32

to say it in the same way that

11:34

you didn't call someone Black or Negra.

11:36

You always call them Schwartzes. as

11:38

if that made it nicer that no one else

11:40

would know what you were talking about -- Mhmm. --

11:42

that Fagler was the phrase for

11:44

fact it. And

11:46

so it seemed to me that

11:49

since I was both

11:51

adamantly Jewish, whatever

11:53

that means and adamantly gay

11:55

that I should have a name that reflect reflected

11:57

both of my cultures.

11:59

And

11:59

then after my father rejected my

12:02

first name, I decided

12:04

to reject his name.

12:06

singer. And

12:08

since

12:10

I'm also a product of my mother

12:13

that I took her name

12:15

and unlike many of

12:17

the people who took their mother's

12:19

last name, which is simply their mother's

12:21

father's name, which seemed to be

12:23

not be getting any place. I

12:26

in line with Jewish

12:28

tradition, which is matrilineal to boot.

12:30

In other words, we trace through

12:33

our mothers, not our fathers. It doesn't matter who

12:35

the hell your father is. Ben

12:39

is Hebrew for son of.

12:42

And

12:42

so I am the faggot son

12:44

of Miriam.

12:45

And my mother kinda gets off in that name.

12:47

She does like it. When

12:50

she got

12:52

used to it all. Let's

12:54

go back now. Again, the sixties.

12:57

You were drafted into the army. You

12:59

joined the army. How did you wind up in the army? combination

13:01

of factors. The draft board was

13:04

breathing down my neck. And part

13:06

of it is I wanted to prove that

13:09

It

13:09

was possible to be gay in the

13:11

army. And, of course, not to say anything about it till

13:13

after I came out. I mean, I had

13:15

already rationalized that the question that

13:17

they asked about do you have homosexual tendencies?

13:20

Is no, I didn't have tendencies.

13:22

I mean, I I was clear

13:24

so that I could answer their

13:26

question and not feel compromised. Was

13:28

that the question specifically? Do you have homosexual

13:31

tendencies? Mhmm. And you

13:33

answered

13:33

truthfully? Yes.

13:34

Most definitely. Going into

13:37

the military, he must have been

13:40

frightened.

13:41

I was a little bit. Mhmm.

13:43

But, you know, I've at some level, I

13:46

thought that I people didn't

13:48

necessarily realize I was queer, you

13:50

know. over time, I

13:52

realized that that's ridiculous. I mean, they have

13:54

to listen to me, look at me, and how can

13:56

I not figure it out? Mhmm. But at

13:58

the time, I thought maybe I was sort of

13:59

passing. It's

14:01

it's only when I hear a tape that

14:03

I always have

14:04

this reaction. Is that mean?

14:06

I sound so faggy. So

14:11

my

14:11

speech teacher at Citi

14:14

College who mister

14:17

Reddy's was saying, mister

14:19

Singer, you need to learn how

14:21

to lower your voice and

14:23

he at that point in front of the whole

14:25

class gave me a lesson

14:27

and I had to sing the lowest note I

14:29

could come up four steps from it. He

14:31

said, that is your natural speaking

14:33

voice. Anyway.

14:36

Uh-huh. What Was

14:39

it no. I've switched back

14:41

to this one, whatever it is.

14:45

So so you're draft so you were drafted.

14:48

So I I got drafted.

14:50

I was A1A09

14:52

combatant, which meant I meant in as a

14:54

medic. which

14:56

wouldn't necessarily have stopped me from going to

14:58

Vietnam. Other non combatant

15:00

medics were sent there.

15:02

But I was sent to Germany, and I did

15:05

my two years there. Turns

15:07

out I was in a a setting

15:09

with I could I

15:12

was out to all of my friends,

15:14

I was a major drug dealer on

15:16

post. People had to deal with me whether they

15:18

liked me or not. I

15:20

was well liked by a lot of

15:23

people and my

15:25

friends gave me a lot of

15:27

support. for

15:29

being for being gay

15:32

that

15:32

I didn't have to hide it. In some

15:34

ways, it was a very nice environment. It was

15:36

a family we created a

15:38

small collective within the military, a

15:40

very unmilitaristic group --

15:42

Mhmm. -- that did its

15:44

best to fuck up the system every chance

15:46

we could. I medics were known to

15:48

have the least shined of anyone's

15:50

shoes, things like that. When

15:52

did you leave the

15:55

military. Got it. for the full two

15:57

years? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Mhmm. I'm now

15:59

on ten

15:59

percent disability for psychological

16:03

nervous condition. I'm

16:05

not quite sure exactly

16:08

what the mumbo

16:10

jumbo is around it. but

16:12

it was traumatic being in an all male

16:14

environment. And then

16:16

being forced out of this, it's

16:19

just threw me for a couple of

16:22

loops. Uh-huh. Okay.

16:24

So I got

16:26

out in June sixty nine. and moved back to

16:28

New York. Actually, I moved in with my parents for

16:30

a few months in Van Vernon. June

16:33

sixty nine then,

16:35

What? Good timing. Well, I didn't

16:38

know about Stonewall.

16:42

I started back up at Citi

16:44

College that summer. There at that

16:46

point was already a gay group at Citi

16:48

College called Homosexuals and

16:50

Transigentexclamation Point. I

16:54

immediately looked them up -- Mhmm. --

16:56

and joined. And

16:58

through high, homosexuality

17:01

and transgigent, ended up

17:03

going to some of the early

17:05

planning meetings as a Christopher Street

17:07

liberation day umbrella

17:09

committee. So

17:11

I started dealing with the

17:13

likes of Craig Rodwell

17:16

and I involved

17:18

in ERCO

17:20

and

17:20

Mako, East Coast

17:23

regional home file organizations

17:26

and North American Conference of Homophile

17:29

Organization. Oh, I was

17:30

also involved in GAA in New York, and

17:32

then about March of nineteen seventy,

17:35

I moved away. Why did you

17:38

leave? These were exciting

17:40

times. Yeah. They

17:42

were. Well,

17:44

one thing I had gotten held

17:46

up going into my building in the

17:48

East village, not a place

17:50

of feeling. Mhmm. It was

17:52

time to move on. I knew I was getting more and more

17:55

political. Our family was around.

17:57

We don't have the same name.

17:59

if they had a queer and the family doing this other politics,

18:01

it would invalidate what they were doing.

18:03

I mean, I would have made

18:05

that equation

18:06

now. I at

18:08

that point, I didn't want

18:10

them to be a carryover from

18:13

what I was doing affecting what they were

18:15

doing. So I got a

18:17

van. and

18:17

I started I left with this

18:20

woman that I'd been

18:21

sharing an apartment with not a lover.

18:24

She wanted to

18:24

go to Seattle, and I kinda wants to go to

18:26

San Francisco. We stopped in Detroit,

18:29

picked up one of my army friends,

18:31

the two of them fell in love, became a

18:34

couple. And they stayed in Seattle,

18:36

and I went to San Francisco. I

18:38

got a job. with Bankers

18:41

Mortgage Company. I got that job in

18:43

August of seventy. I

18:45

was terminated in January

18:47

of seventy one. I was caught

18:49

kissing a man in the elevator. Mine I

18:52

was saying

18:52

goodbye to my boyfriend.

18:55

God knows what else? I mean, they

18:57

were very entitled for having

18:59

me. Because

19:00

because I was

19:01

too open. I was too outrageous. I

19:04

was too threatening. Mhmm. You

19:06

left then left San Francisco. I

19:09

lost my job. I couldn't afford to stay there. I

19:11

moved to Seattle. I moved in with the

19:13

people I'd come cross country with.

19:15

Went on unemployment. thirty

19:18

two

19:18

dollars a week.

19:21

Seattle

19:21

had already had it had

19:23

a GLF here. It

19:26

had a campus gay group and it had

19:28

a counseling service at

19:30

a lesbian resource center.

19:32

We

19:33

had a collective shortly

19:36

after I moved here, we've

19:38

got a house about seventy

19:41

one and we ran

19:41

a gay community center along

19:44

collective lines. At

19:46

that time, I also when my unemployment ran

19:48

out, I got a job with E EOC.

19:51

What is EOC? Equal employment

19:53

opportunity. commission -- Mhmm. -- doing what?

19:56

I was a secretary.

19:58

It was interesting. My boss in the

19:59

interview said, this job, you not only have

20:02

to have good skills, you have to empathy

20:04

for minorities. And this is what I am.

20:06

I'm an already

20:07

twice over. I'm Jewish and I'm gay.

20:10

And he

20:10

was very impressed with that. He said, later, that's

20:12

why he hired me. About

20:14

that time, I discovered

20:16

that I

20:18

discovered from Pete Francis himself who

20:20

was the senator who had introduced the state

20:23

legislation about changing the

20:25

definition of marriage. Marriage

20:27

is a contract between persons eighteen

20:29

years and older who and then they

20:31

list various qualifications. They can't be

20:33

mentally retired. You can't.

20:35

It never mentions gender. and

20:38

Pete Francis is part that

20:39

was very deliberate and he wanted someone

20:41

to test this.

20:43

So we talked at the

20:44

household about it I was

20:47

into challenging it. Who are we

20:49

gonna

20:49

do it? There's one man in the house that I

20:51

We weren't lovers particularly. We were good friends. We

20:53

had slept together. I mean,

20:55

things

20:55

were fluid in those days.

20:57

Paul and I decided we're gonna go down for

21:00

another license. The clerk

21:02

refused to issue a license I mean, the TV cameras

21:04

were there when we went to get the license. I mean, it

21:06

was all quite You got a television

21:08

station in the room? Oh, yes. Yes. I mean, we

21:10

had a lot of political expertise in

21:12

a scrap. The local papers picked

21:13

it up. The local TV station's APUPI.

21:19

We got some interesting feedback like

21:21

letters from people in small town

21:23

Washington saying, you know, I thought I

21:25

was the only one. and the

21:28

news about a game movement had never reached

21:30

these people. Uh-huh. The

21:32

national lawyers we went to

21:34

ACLU, would they be the lawyers in

21:36

this case? ACOU wouldn't

21:39

take it. They said

21:41

this is a little too frivolous for

21:43

us to touch. So marriage,

21:47

this was too frivolous. Well,

21:49

let them stand on their own

21:51

record. National lawyers skilled,

21:53

there was a collective intent. They took the

21:55

case, really wonderful people.

21:59

And we took that up

22:02

through the second level, I

22:04

guess, and lost and

22:06

decided we didn't have the money or the energy.

22:08

I mean, National lawyers go provided free

22:10

legal help, but they needed money just

22:12

for filing fees and stuff. In the meantime,

22:14

we have the community center going,

22:17

And so we dropped that case. And

22:21

then, as I said, I was working with the

22:23

EOC. And all of a

22:25

sudden, we got to hit up with this Civil

22:27

service commission wanted me fired.

22:29

The local civil service

22:32

commission office which covered

22:34

all local you

22:36

know, all hirings and firings ultimately.

22:38

And the

22:39

list of charges that they

22:41

drew up

22:43

included such things as that I had

22:46

applied for a marriage license and in

22:48

doing so. I when the report has asked me where

22:50

I worked at city EOC, and

22:53

their line of reasoning was

22:55

that If known homosexuals

22:57

were gonna be working for the government, it would cause

22:59

people to lose their faith in a civil service

23:02

system. And in the

23:04

list of particulars, they listed

23:06

well. My van had things painted on

23:08

it like sagets against fascism

23:11

and gay power. that they've been

23:13

caught kissing another man in the elevator at

23:16

previous employment, all those

23:18

kinds of things. So

23:20

the issue here was you were not just

23:23

homosexual, you were flaunting it? Yes. I

23:25

was flaunting it and holding it up

23:27

as a valid lifestyle. I

23:29

went back to the CLU, and

23:31

I said, okay, is this now

23:34

not frivolous enough? I'm

23:36

losing my job. They had to

23:38

take it. They did. They

23:40

had a hell of a time finding a cooperating

23:42

attorney who would take the case off

23:44

and on. I had about

23:46

four attorneys in the course of the five and a

23:48

half years that it took to fight the case.

23:51

My coworkers signed

23:53

a letter in defense of

23:55

me that had absolutely

23:57

no bearing. At one point, E ERC

23:59

had the choice of keeping me

24:01

on during the appeal or

24:03

firing me, and they chose to

24:06

not keep me on. Now at that point,

24:08

I had been wearing dresses to work.

24:10

I was still getting excellent

24:12

performance ratings. I

24:14

wore the dresses I mean, I spoke to

24:16

this this one woman who was my

24:19

supervisor, a a wonderful

24:21

feminist. One day I remember saying to her

24:23

when I was working there, Lynn, if

24:25

we've been defending men with long

24:27

hair and women wearing pants to

24:29

work, shouldn't that same law apply

24:31

in reverse? And she said,

24:33

technically, yes, it would. That

24:35

you cannot make a dress code that

24:37

applies to only one gender.

24:39

And for the

24:42

most part, my coworkers took it and

24:44

dried. The one outfit that

24:45

crossed

24:46

the boundary

24:47

of outrageousness for

24:50

them was I borrowed a pair of black lace pants

24:52

from a wonderful

24:54

queen faggot in town. I had

24:56

black lace under pants and a see

24:59

through sequined black top. And

25:02

so basically, you could see skin

25:04

where you shouldn't see skin.

25:06

And that one even

25:08

my coworkers a little bit upset about. The

25:11

dresses didn't bother them. And

25:15

the truth be told, most of my friends tell me,

25:17

and it's probably true that I

25:19

had some of the tiniest athletes in town.

25:21

It was the days of micro minis.

25:24

Two were micraminees. I

25:27

I wore anything. I wore full

25:29

length cans. I can show you some of the

25:31

cans. I still have them. The difference

25:34

between mind wearing a micro mini

25:36

and a woman wearing a micro mini

25:38

is I didn't believe an underpants

25:40

in space. I don't know. I didn't

25:42

think I had it for years.

25:44

It's it's very difficult to stay covered.

25:48

micro mini. It's a real

25:50

challenge. Why did you why

25:52

why did I wear dress? Why

25:54

do wear dresses? and I

25:57

like them. And I

25:59

was experimenting. I mean,

26:01

part of the things about being gay

26:03

was the freedom to play

26:05

around with an experiment with

26:07

all kinds of things. And that was one

26:09

of them -- Mhmm. -- to see what it felt like to

26:11

wear a dress. it was in some

26:13

ways very liberating. In some

26:16

ways, it gave me an incredible insight

26:19

more than any other man around

26:21

of vulnerability

26:23

that women are up against

26:26

constantly. Especially when you're wearing high heels,

26:28

it's very hard to run-in high

26:30

heels. you wear high heels? Well, if if it went

26:32

with the outfit, yes. Uh-huh.

26:34

It was interesting because a lot of the

26:37

women a feminist the the

26:39

lesbian feminist that I knew

26:41

had a lot of trouble with drag,

26:43

but I and

26:45

I also had a trans sexual roommate.

26:47

The two of us together, each from different

26:50

perspectives, won over a lot of

26:52

those women. to being supportive of what

26:54

we were doing. She weren't

26:55

in drag. That it wasn't

26:57

just it wasn't just drag.

26:59

That it was a real political statement.

27:01

and they understood that

27:05

they couldn't couldn't wear

27:07

dresses because for them it

27:09

was stereotypical behavior and

27:11

they just couldn't do it. I mean, those were the days

27:13

when dykes had to wear bib overalls

27:15

and have crew cuts. No.

27:17

The the the female clown

27:20

politically correct address? Yes. Yes.

27:23

There were other drag manifestations,

27:26

but I was really the only one

27:29

who took it to

27:31

that extreme. I mean, for a year

27:33

and a half, I didn't wear specifically

27:35

male clothing. It gave

27:37

me a picture of myself that I needed

27:39

to see. that

27:41

genital mail that I am that doesn't define

27:44

all of me. It lets me see

27:46

signs of me that maybe

27:48

after long analysis and

27:50

long contemplation I might have

27:52

come to see. Mhmm. But it's like a

27:54

cram course.

28:02

Fagola Ben

28:02

Miriam eventually won his lawsuit against

28:04

the US civil service commission.

28:06

He was offered reinstatement

28:09

at his old job and back paying benefits

28:11

to cover the five and a half years during which

28:13

his case made its way through the courts, all

28:15

the way up to the US Supreme Court. The

28:18

case helped lead to a new civil service

28:20

commission policy that federal employees

28:22

could not be discriminated against

28:24

based on sexual preference. Fagula

28:27

took the settlement but declined to take his old

28:29

job back. He finished out his working

28:31

life at the US Department of Labor,

28:34

where he worked as a secretary until his retirement in

28:36

nineteen ninety five. He

28:39

died five years later on

28:41

June fifth two thousand. He

28:44

was fifty five. His

28:46

death was variously attributed to lung

28:48

cancer, brain cancer, and

28:50

HIV. His mother Miriam, in whose

28:52

honor he'd renamed himself, survived

28:55

him. Thank

28:58

you to making Gay History's hard working

29:00

crew, including producer, Inc. At Theta,

29:02

audio engineer, Kathleen Conte,

29:04

researcher Brian Ferri, photo editor, Michael

29:07

Breen, and our social media producers, Christian

29:09

Apania and Nick Porter. Special

29:11

thanks to our founding editor

29:13

producer, Sauer Burningham, and our

29:15

founding production partner, GenoICE

29:17

Berman at Pineapple Street Studios.

29:19

And thank you to the New York Public Library's manuscript

29:21

and archives division for their assistance with photos

29:24

and other images. Our theme

29:26

music was composed by Fritz Myers.

29:28

Season eleven of this podcast

29:30

has been made possible with funding from the Jonathan

29:32

Logan Family Foundation, Broadway Care's

29:35

equity fights aids, the Calamus

29:37

Foundation, Christopher Street Financial, Caddigan

29:39

and Lee Wilson, Lewis Bradbury,

29:41

David Corolo, Lee Shear, Andrea

29:43

and Irwin Press, and Patrick Hynes

29:45

and Steve Tipton. head

29:47

to make and get history dot com, where you'll

29:50

find all our previous episodes, archival

29:52

photos, including defangola, full

29:54

transcripts, and additional information on each of

29:56

the people in stories we feature. That's

29:58

also where you can sign up for our newsletter, so

30:00

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30:02

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30:04

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previously unreleased audio from the

30:13

Making Day History Archive. This

30:15

week, we're adding a bonus clip from

30:17

my interview with Fangela in which he makes

30:19

a vigorous case for building community

30:21

outside what he called the country's

30:24

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in our banner. I'm

30:34

Eric Marcus. So long and till

30:37

next time.