Season 10: Preview

Season 10: Preview

Author: Eric Marcus February 17, 2022 Duration: 3:51
We’re back with more stories from the AIDS crisis. Hear Eric Marcus in conversation with six people whose lives and activism were transformed by the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and beyond. 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

Eric Marcus brings voices out of the past and into the present with Making Gay History | LGBTQ Oral Histories from the Archive. This isn't a dry historical lecture; it's a collection of intimate conversations, built from rare archival recordings that many thought were lost. Each episode feels like sitting down with someone who was there, offering a personal window into the pivotal moments and everyday struggles that have shaped the LGBTQ community. You'll hear from towering figures of the movement alongside people whose names you might not know-ordinary individuals who displayed extraordinary courage. These are the witnesses, the champions, and the quiet heroes whose stories form the bedrock of this history. Listening, you get the raw, unvarnished emotion in their own words, from the fear and defiance of early activism to the hard-won joys of living authentically. The podcast moves across decades, connecting personal diaries, long-shelved interviews, and firsthand accounts into a powerful, human tapestry. It’s about more than just events; it’s about the lived experience, the culture, and the personal health-both mental and physical-of a community fighting for its place. Through these oral histories, the archive becomes a living, breathing conversation, ensuring that this vital history is remembered not as abstract facts, but as the deeply personal stories it truly is.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Making Gay History | LGBTQ Oral Histories from the Archive
Podcast Episodes
Dismantling a Diagnosis: Episode 2: The Cure [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 48:18
A half-century ago, millions of homosexuals were cured with the stroke of a pen when the American Psychiatric Association decided to change its diagnostic manual and remove homosexuality from the list of mental disorders…
Dismantling a Diagnosis: Episode 1: A Kind of Madness [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:34
In the 1950s, psychiatrists diagnosed all homosexuals with a mental illness, and the sickness label created new forms of oppression for gay people in America. The sickness label was pervasive and seemingly inescapable. U…
Coming of Age During the 1970s: Chapter 6: Marching On [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:01:53
In 1978 Harvey Milk calls on gay people to gather in D.C. the next year to protest the anti-gay campaigns of Anita Bryant and her ilk. Organizers are stymied by internal conflicts until Milk’s assassination galvanizes th…
Coming of Age During the 1970s: Chapter 5: Thank You, Anita [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 53:02
Eric gets an A on his freshman sociology paper, “Marginal Man: The Alcoholic and the Homosexual.” But his sunny predictions for the future of the gay rights movement are met with skepticism from his professor. Mere weeks…
Coming of Age During the 1970s: Chapter 4: Respectable [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 50:59
Gay rights activists in NYC are first out of the gate to propose anti-discrimination legislation, confident it will sail through the City Council. Instead, they hit a wall of ignorance and bigotry. Meanwhile, 15-year-old…
Coming of Age During the 1970s: Chapter 3: Family Ties [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 50:56
When Jeanne Manford’s gay son is badly beaten at a 1972 GAA protest, the shy elementary school teacher takes a stand. She cofounds the organization now known as PFLAG and launches a movement that harnesses the strength o…
Coming of Age During the 1970s: Chapter 1: A Surge of Energy [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 31:03
The Stonewall uprising ignites an explosion of protests and organizing that transforms a small, often tentative homophile movement into a newly assertive national force that demands gay liberation and equality. In a Puer…
Coming of Age During the 1970s: Preview [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 3:34
The decade between Stonewall and the 1979 March on Washington lives in the shadow of the AIDS crisis and all that came after. In this six-part season, Eric Marcus explores the heady years of gay liberation and the backla…