Until the repeal of the Buggery Act in 1861, gay sex was a capital offense in England, forcing queer people out of public life. However, even during the extremely hostile environment before the repeal, ‘Molly Houses’, often coffeehouses, pubs or taverns, were created where queer people could meet and socialize.
Named after the slang term molly, which was usually used to refer to effeminate, homosexual men, Molly Houses quickly became the go-to meeting place for queer men in 18th-century England.
In court records from a buggery trial in 1724, a policeman named Joseph Sellers who visited a Molly House reported seeing “a company of men fiddling and dancing and singing bawdy songs, kissing and using their hands in a very unseemly manner.”
What is clear from reports at the time, typically from testimonies given in court cases, are the mock rituals the Mollies would perform. From adopting a female persona, alongside a feminine name and mannerisms, to cross-dressing on Festival Nights and conducting mock births and marriages.
Many of the sexual encounters and rituals were comedic in nature and were aimed at making a masquerade of straight conventions and parodying aristocratic manners.
“They were a forum for comedy and performance, where the whole idea of what’s true and natural gets called into question,” explains Matt Cook, the UK’s first Professor of LGBTQ+ History at the University of Oxford. “They served an important function for people to play with convention, ritual and to explore, have sex and socialize.”
The rise and fall of Mother Clap’s Molly House
Found on Field Lane in Holborn, central London, Mother Clap’s Molly House was arguably the most well-known and infamous molly house in 18th-century London. Run by Margaret ‘Mother’ Clap, this venue regularly accommodated dozens of men with beds being placed in all the rooms, thanks to Mother Clap.
The popularity of Mother Clap’s would ultimately prove to be its downfall, with a member of the puritan Society for the Reformation of Manners, Samuel Stevens, going undercover at the club to expose the patrons.
After visiting Mother Clap’s on November 14th 1725, Stevens said he saw men making love to one another and kissing in a lewd manner. “Then they would get up, Dance and make Curtsies, and mimick the voices of Women. Then they’d hug, and play, and toy, and go out by Couples into another Room on the same Floor, to be marry’d, as they call’d it.”
Police constables descended upon Mother Clap’s in February 1726, blocking all exits and arresting forty men. While most were released due to a lack of evidence, Mother Clap herself and a handful of customers received fines and prison sentences and were put in the pillory.
Three guests, Gabriel Lawrence, William Griffin, and Thomas Wright, were found guilty of buggery and hanged on May 9th, 1726.
The limits of inclusion
A handful of other Molly Houses have been identified in London and other cities, including Plump Nelly’s Molly House in London’s Smithfield and a public house on the edge of Warrington, a town near Manchester.
There is no question that the legal climate at the time when Molly Houses existed was deeply repressive towards men who had sex with men. Yet, for Cook, the lack of a distinct homosexual identity during the 18th and 19th centuries makes it a challenge for historians today to say exactly what motivated Molly House patrons.
“There was still a sense of it being an act rather than an identity. We don’t know really what the people who went to the Molly Houses were thinking of themselves,” he explains.
While there are mentions of upper-class men visiting, or slumming it, in Molly Houses, Cook warns against viewing Molly Houses as utopian environments, where class differences in 18th century England simply disappeared.
“If you just look at who was arrested and prosecuted, there are no upper-class men there. I think it’s a mistake to think of them as kind of all-inclusive spaces – I don’t think they functioned like that at all.”
Relying on unreliable storytellers
Despite only being open from 1724 to 1726, Mother Clap’s Molly House and its eccentric owner managed to create a sanctuary in a deeply repressive society. Even its raid and subsequent arrests helped provide historians today with unrivaled insights about gay life in England centuries ago.
The vast majority of primary sources about the Molly Houses are related to court cases or pamphlets distributed at the time. Much of the historical record comes directly from people who infiltrated Molly Houses undercover and then testified in court against customers.
“Often the only times when marginalized lives get reported on is when the law gets involved,” says English playwright Mark Ravenhill, who wrote the 2001 play, Mother Clap’s Molly House, set in part in 1720s London. “The facts available to us have been slightly distorted because they’re all from the prosecution, who are trying to shut down the houses.”
The growth of Molly Houses from around 1690 to 1726, and the following crackdown, interested Ravenhill and led him to set his play in the 1720s.
“After reading the material, I just thought it’s such a fascinating history. But there also seemed to be a very inherent theatrical element to the stories – I could easily see them on a big stage with lots of costume, music and dancing.”
Despite the immense importance these places had in allowing queer people to be themselves and in the process create a distinct subculture, their existence is still not widely known.
“People still on the whole haven’t heard about these places,” concludes Ravenhill. “As soon as you start to tell them about that culture, it just blows their mind and they want to know more about Molly Houses.”
“The debate did not include any substantive questions that address the safety and freedom of LGBTQ Americans and instead devolved into a competition between candidates — and between candidates and one moderator — as to who could prove the most transphobic,” says a GLAAD analysis.
The debate, held at the University of Alabama and televised by NewsNation, featured Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy. It was moderated by Megyn Kelly and Elizabeth Vargas of NewsNation and Eliana Johnson, editor in chief of The Washington Free Beacon.
“Last night’s debate was a failure of leadership and of journalism, full of unchecked disinformation about LGBTQ Americans and their families,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in the organization’s release. “In a few instances, a moderator was the one fueling the disinformation and egging on the candidates for shameful pile-ons of transgender people. GLAAD asked the moderators to ask questions about how to keep Americans safe, including LGBTQ Americans who are facing unprecedented violence and harassment. Moderator Megyn Kelly chose instead to grossly mischaracterize life-saving health care and bait candidates into outdoing one another in anti-transgender fear mongering. This debate was an embarrassment for the candidates, for the host, and for the American people looking for real answers to actual problems, not more bullying of vulnerable people and lying about who they are. Voters, responsible reporters, and viewers can take note of last night and all that it revealed about the desperate candidates and a grandstanding moderator and how they failed to deliver information that advances our democracy and the safety of all Americans.”
The transphobia began with the candidates’ opening remarks, GLAAD notes, with DeSantis asserting that he stopped the “gender mutilation of minors” with a bill he signed banning gender-affirming care for trans youth. His language is “an inflammatory and false characterization of health care backed by every major medical association,” GLAAD points out. Doctors do not generally recommend genital surgery for minors, and DeSantis also claimed that the effects of puberty blockers are irreversible, which is not true, and called gender-affirming care “child abuse.”
Later, Kelly used similar language when asking Christie, who was less transphobic than the others onstage, about his positions on trans issues. “You do not favor a ban on trans medical treatments for minors, saying it’s a parental rights issue,” she said. “The surgeries done on minors involve cutting off body parts at a time when these kids cannot even legally smoke a cigarette. Kids who go from puberty blockers to cross-sex hormones are at a much greater likelihood of winding up sterile. How is it that you think a parent should be able to OK these surgeries, never mind the sterilization of a child, and aren’t you way too out of step on this issue to be the Republican nominee?”
Again, surgeries for minors are rare, and puberty blockers do not cause sterility, GLAAD emphasizes. Christie said he did not approve of these procedures for minors but added that he can make decisions only for his children, not for anyone else’s.
Kelly then asked if he had undermined parental rights by signing a bill into law on guidelines for public schools in dealing with trans students. The guidelines advise schools to recognize students’ gender identity and do not require parental notification. Christie distanced himself from the matter, saying the guidelines took effect when he was no longer governor. He did sign a bill into law in 2017 requiring the New Jersey education commissioner to develop guidelines for treatment of trans students, but the guidelines weren’t issued until the following year, when he was out of office.
The debate also featured DeSantis claiming Haley opposed legislation that said, in his words, “that men shouldn’t go into girls’ bathrooms,” something Haley denied. But “in fact, transgender girls are not ‘men,’ and there is no evidence that trans students are a threat to other students,” GLAAD says. The organization further notes that trans students face danger when they don’t have access to the restrooms and locker rooms matching their gender identity.
Then there was Ramaswamy’s remark that “transgenderism is a mental health disorder.” However, “the term ‘transgenderism’ is used by anti-transgender activists to dehumanize transgender people and reduce who they are to ‘a condition’ or a ‘dangerous ideology’ and medical consensus states that being transgender is not a mental health condition,” GLAAD comments.
GLAAD had submitted questions to the moderators, but none of them were used. These included asking DeSantis about the effects of Florida’s “don’t say gay” law on gay students and whether he’d take the state’s anti-LGBTQ+ policies nationwide if he became president; Ramaswamy about his support for a national ban on gender-affirming care for minors, even though every major medical association supports this care; Christie about why he signed trans-supportive legislation; and Haley about where she’s getting the information that led her to blame trans young people for teenage girls’ mental health crises. The organization also suggested asking all candidates about marriage equality, book banning, and how they’d support and protect LGBTQ+ people instead of politicizing them.
Police have identified three suspects in the brutal murder of a 30-year-old gay man, whose body was found in a park in Phoenix, Arizona on November 26.
The alleged killers – all of whom have confessed to being involved in the murder – shot Bernardo Pantaleon multiple times before mutilating his body with a knife. According to Arizona’s Family, his body was in such bad condition that police told his family they should not see him.
Related:
Court documents reveal that the crime was likely motivated by anti-gay hate. The documents stated that 21-year-old Leonardo Santiago told police he killed the victim because he made “an unwanted advance that made him uncomfortable.”
Get the Daily Brief
The news you care about, reported on by the people who care about you:
A state attorney added, “He ultimately shot the victim several times, killing him, leaving him, and returning an hour later with his codefendant Manuel Carrasco, who then mutilated the victim’s body.” Another man, 20-year-old Jose Rodriguez, has also been arrested for allegedly participating in the murder.
Investigators also reportedly found texts between the three men in which they discussed plans to “rob and kill” Pantaleon, proving the murder was premeditated.
And the nightmare for the family did not end there. On November 30, loved ones received two photos of Pantaleon’s body. One of them – which was also posted on Instagram –included the hand of a man holding up his middle finger to the camera. Police used the Instagram account to ultimately identify the suspects.
The suspects are reportedly part of a gang whose members were discovered celebrating the murder on social media.
A GoFundMe page set up by the victim’s family said Pantaleon was “not just full of love, but the funniest, caring loving person you will come across.”
“It was never a dull moment with him,” it continued. “Bernardo was the rock for his sibling after the loss of their parents. Unfortunately, we are mourning him as we have lost him in the most tragic way possible. “
The California Migration Museum recently launched a free, immersive audio tourwhich explores how an era of migration to the Castro transformed a sleepy Irish Catholic enclave into a queer homeland. We interviewed Gabby Santas from the project to learn more about the process of creating the tour, and how our archives played a pivotal role in shaping the content.
Tell us a bit about the Castro tour.
Gabby Santas:At Home in the Castro – our audio tour of San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood – departs from 1957, when Mike, or “Maurice” Gerry opens a hair salon on Castro Street, becoming the first openly gay business owner on the strip. Mike watched the neighborhood transform around him, as a series of migrations throughout the 1960s and 70s transformed the Castro into a gay “homeland” with a rainbow-flag stake in the ground. The tour also documents Mike’s own transformation into “Michelle,” a drag queen celebrity in the 1960s.
What surprised you as you started your research?
GS: What surprised me when I started digging into San Francisco’s queer history is how drag has actually always been at the forefront of the fight for LGBTQ liberation. In the 1950s, the Black Cat Cafe in North Beach became famous for its drag shows starring José Sarria. In 1961, using the Black Cat as a political headquarters, Sarria ran for San Francisco’s City Supervisor—the first known openly gay candidate anywhere in the world to run for public office. He shocked supporters by winning 6,000 votes, setting in motion the idea that a gay voting bloc could wield real power in city politics nearly two decades before Harvey Milk’s successful election.
How did our archives help in your project?
GS: The GLBT Historical Society has a really awesome, extensive archival collection. My favorite is listening to oral histories, because you get to learn about the past first-hand from the people who were living it. It makes you realize there is no single story, because each interviewee experienced and interprets the events of the time differently.
One that stuck out was Craig Richmond’s interview. He was among thousands of gay men who migrated to San Francisco in the 1960s, and spoke emotionally about finding a feeling of “home” when he crossed the Golden Gate Bridge. His testimony was an important reminder that the story of the Castro wasn’t just automatic inclusion for everyone: Craig performed as a drag queen, and he said that the mustachioed men clad white T-shirts, Levi’s jeans and hiking boots (what became the classic “Castro Clone” look) were “the most narrow-minded group of people in the world.”
Why is it important to tell this story?
GS: When we first started researching our Castro tour we knew it was important to recognize how gay migration has helped shape California, but we had no idea the extent to which questions about drag were about to take center stage in US politics. In the last year there has been a drastic proliferation of anti-drag bills introduced by lawmakers across the country, restricting or banning drag shows and performers.
Today, the Castro may not be the first neighborhood in San Francisco that most people think about when they hear the word “migration.” But the LGBTQ+ migration into the Castro in the 1960s and 1970s changed the world and was as much a cry for freedom as that made by any of the other groups of “immigrants and revolutionaries” that have shaped the US.
At the start of the neighborhood’s transformation, the Castro’s new residents were predominantly white and overwhelmingly male. Effeminate men, trans men and women, or people dressed up in drag routinely faced discrimination in bars and on the streets. Queer people of color staked out their own small havens, like the Pendulum bar, but they were few and far between. Most lesbians didn’t feel welcomed.
I think that’s one thing IDHAZ (an electronic musician who narrates the tour) brings that’s really valuable. As a trans man, he finds resonances in Mike’s story: while the neighborhood is often framed as a queer Mecca, there are many ways IDHAZ feels the Castro isn’t really “for” him.
What’s next for the project?
GS: The idea is for “Migrant Footsteps” to eventually expand from San Francisco stories to a state-wide collection of California’s migration history. We have a new tour that just came out in Japantown (on Japanese Americans’ return to the city after incarceration during WWII), and another coming out in downtown Los Angeles (on Depression-era Mexican American “repatriation”) towards the end of the year. You can stay up to date on the progress and new tours coming out by signing up for our newsletter via our website calmigration.org.
How can people experience the tour?
GS: The tours are free to download! Our app, Migrant Footsteps, is on the App Store or Google Play, and it hosts a series of immersive, digital walking tours exploring migrant stories in neighborhoods across California. The idea is that migration isn’t something you can put away in a locked display case: these are living histories, often hidden in the spaces we encounter in our day-to-day lives.
Gabby Santas is a Project Manager with the California Migration Museum. Guided by the strong belief in the power of innovative storytelling to change minds, her work with the museum brings together stories not only of arrival and welcome but also exclusion, displacement, and resistance, exploring how California was—and continues to be—profoundly shaped by migration. Gabby graduated from Brown University in 2020 with a B.A. in Socio-Cultural Anthropology. She is currently based in Berkeley, CA.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Photo Credits: The Castro Theatre on Castro Street in San Francisco, ca. 1983; Disco singer Sylvester performs at the 1980 Castro Street Fair; Women posing in San Francisco’s Castro district, ca. 1978; Two couples on the steps of a building on Castro Street in San Francisco. Sylvester photo by Robert Pruzan, Robert Pruzan Collection (1998-36), GLBT Historical Society; All others are by Crawford Wayne Barton, Crawford Wayne Barton Photographs (1993-11), GLBT Historical Society. Gabby Santas photo courtesy of same.
For many years, the sight of Pearl Hart’s lavender Auburn car pulling up outside the courthouse struck fear into her opponents. Known for her uncompromising nature and fierce defense of those who could not defend themselves, Pearl Hart was not a lawyer prosecutors ever wanted to face.
She defended gay rights all her life, often without charging a fee. She was unpopular with the establishment, being, in the words of the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame, “too liberal and too honest to ever win the backing of a corrupt and prejudiced political system.”Within the LGBTQ+ community, however, she was regarded as a heroine, a woman who would protect their rights at any cost, and the first lesbian lawyer to appear before the Supreme Court. Her name is still spoken with reverence in the lesbian bars of Chicago, and more publically, her name lives on in the city’s Gerber/Hart Library, which is devoted to LGBTQ+ books and archives.
Hart was born in Traverse City, Michigan in 1890 to Jewish immigrant parents, the fifth daughter of David and Rebecca Harchovsky. Her father was a rabbi who, soon after her birth, moved his family to Chicago, where he served a congregation on the southwest side. Hart herself would later say that this early exposure to poverty and her parents’ dedication to helping others formed the basis of her lifelong dedication to social justice. She recalled that she was a much-loved child, spoiled on occasion, who was encouraged in everything she did.
The young Pearl adopted the name Hart when she began her professional career. She found it easier and more convenient but never otherwise distanced herself from her origins as the child of immigrant parents, later vehemently arguing in the Supreme Court that “I defend the foreign born against the present deportation hysteria because of a consciousness that it was the foreign born and their children who built this nation of ours and who have been its most loyal partisans.”Hart trained as a stenographer before studying at John Marshall Law School and was admitted to the Illinois Bar in 1914, after which she became one of the first women to specialize in criminal law, serving as a probation officer from 1915 to 1917.
Soon afterward, she met Blossom Churan, the daughter of a law officer with whom Hart shared an office. The two entered a relationship, one which turned serious after the deaths of Churan’s father and Hart’s mother, from whom they were careful to conceal their connection. Hart never denied that she was a lesbian, but neither did she flaunt it, especially during her early years when she was fighting to establish her professional reputation.
Her five foot eleven, two hundred pound frame made her an imposing presence. She was described by journalist I.F. Stone as a “big benevolent Brunnhilde of a woman,”but only to those she supported. To those facing her across a courtroom, she was a terrifying spectacle, utterly ruthless and laser-focused behind her heavy-rimmed glasses. Hart dedicated herself to supporting and defending those who could not help themselves and became the first woman appointed as a public defender in the Morals court, which dealt with cases of prostitution, immoral or homosexual conduct, child abuse, and adultery. She achieved what her friend, journalist Studs Terkel, termed a remarkable acquittal record of over 90%.
By 1937, Hart was widely respected professionally and became a founding member and secretary of the National Lawyers Guild, which uniquely for the time was fully racially integrated. The 1940’s saw her become a fully-fledged civil rights activist serving on the board of the civil rights bail fund, which sought to legally challenge racial segregation and discrimination in matters such as housing and healthcare. She also founded the Midwest Association for the Protection of the Foreign Born, to protect those being threatened with deportation.
In her personal life, by 1947 Hart was proposing to live with Churan at 2821 North Pine Grove Avenue, in what was then the heart of gay Chicago. Churan, though, had taken as a lover the prominent physician Dr. Bertha Isaacs, and rather than separate, Hart proposed that they all live together, which they did in what Hart’s later lover Valerie Taylor called a “rather gothic existence”until Churan’s death.
All three women kept their lives compartmentalized and, in the words of Taylor, “Neighbors saw three aging women, two with successful careers, one who stayed at home. Out of town relatives or friends stayed at nearby hotels.”
Despite this, Hart was increasingly living openly as a lesbian, and from the 1960s onward, she focused on ensuring that the rights of the LGBTQ+ community were legally protected. The Lavender Scare, termed a “government witch hunt (to) expose closeted queers,” sought to expose LGBTQ+ individuals in order that they could be dismissed from the government, civil service and military. It greatly angered her. Ms. Hart became the go-to lawyer for the LGBTQ+ community, many of whom were subject to these entrapment police “stings.” She usually defended these cases for nothing or for only a minimal fee.
She also co-founded the Mattachine Society in the Midwest, which sought to ensure that LGBTQ+ individuals were aware of their legal rights and the protection that she and others could offer. The society also played a key role in bringing the plight of their members to wider attention, with one newsletterurging the people of Chicago to come “out of the closets and into the streets,”as Hart would protect them (the newsletter can be found dated May 1970 in the Pearl Hart Papers, Box 10 Folder 7).
She also consistently defended those caught up in the Red Scare, held without bail, and under threat of deportation. Most famously, she defended the Chicago men George Witkovich and James Keller, who were held for refusing to answer questions about their relationship with the Communist party at their deportation hearing. The case was ultimately heard by the Supreme Court on May 19, 1957. Hart won a hard-fought victory that meant that evidence of Communist Party affiliation could not be sought after a person was ordered to be deported. Such a public triumph on a national scale gave Hart a platform from which to campaign for LGBTQ+ rights on a grander level.
Hart became, for many, the public face of LGBTQ+ protection in Chicago and a champion of the underdog. Known as the “Guardian Angel of Chicago’s Gay Community,” she practiced law for over 60 years, prevented from becoming a judge by the establishment with which she remained consistently unpopular. She didn’t stop her crusade to make the world better and more equal until a short while before her death in 1975.
Today, her dog-eared photo still graces many a Chicago bar. In the words of the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame – into which she was inducted posthumously in 1992 – she is remembered for her“inheritance,” which it defines as “the love and respect of thousands of men and women whom she helped, and a society somewhat better for her effort – which is all she wanted.”
Patrick Moore was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay area, and grew up on a diet of love, attention, and tofu. In keeping with his unorthodox background, Patrick started his stand-up career in Berlin, Germany. Where he was one of the finalists in the Berlin New Stand Up Awards. He has performed all across Europe, and headlined the Burning Mic festival. He also produces many of his own shows in Berlin as well as a podcast called Hey Baby, I’m Gay. You can find his podcast, sketches, and stand-up clips by following him on Instagram/TikTok/Facebook/Youtube @patmoorecomedy. The show happens Friday December 15 at the Barrel Proof Lounge in downtown Santa Rosa, they can get tickets via the Eventbrite link below.
GaySonoma: Were you a giggly toddler, a class clown, and the kooky cut-up at the office?
Patrick Moore: guess I was a pretty giggly toddler. I remember as a child when something caught my funny bone I would hysterical with laughter to the point where I would need to leave the classroom/movie theater/library or wherever I was. I don’t think I was much of a class clown, but I’ve always enjoyed making my friends laugh.
GS: What’s your earliest memory of watching a comic in action?
PM: I remember my moms showing me Robin Williams HBO special live on broadway, and just being blown away by his energy. All three of us were just in tears watching him act out people inventing the game of golf. Eddie Murphy Raw is another of the first standup specials I remember seeing. I fell in love with Eddie Murphy from Saturday Night Live, and then discovered Raw at the video store, and it made my head explode.
GS: What prompted you to become a comic?
PM: I always loved comedy, and joking around. Laughing and making people laugh. But what really made me want to try doing comedy was listening to the podcast WTF with Marc Maron. Listening to Comedians, they just seemed like cool people to hang out with. And the stories from being on the road and struggling as a new comic sounded like the kind of adventure I was interested in. If I were to dig deeper and psychoanalyze myself, I would probably also have to admit that being an only child pushed me towards it as well.
GS: Did they sit you down and lay down the law about what topics concerning them are forbidden or did they passive-aggressively let you know!
PM: My moms and I never had a conversation about what I was and wasn’t allowed to talk about. Lucky for me I really started my comedy career half a world away from them, in Berlin. So I knew I didn’t have to worry about people knowing them, or them coming to see me when I was still trying to figure out the best ways to talk about my childhood. They only saw me do comedy for the first time earlier this year. When I had already written and started performing my show Mamas’ Boy. So they got to just see it as an already finished piece, and didn’t have to suffer through so much of the growing pains.
GS: How would you describe your humor; your act?
PM: Personal. I don’t have a lot of material that’s observational, or political or anything like that. I heard an interview with a comedian once talking about how no one can steal your jokes if you make them personal, and so that’s always been something that guided me in my writing process. Although if I were to frame it more negatively I would say, I’ve always loved talking about myself so why stop with my comedy.
GS: Talk about your creative process. Are you one of those comics who never goes anywhere without his tine notebook?
PM: I do have several tiny to large size notebooks that sit around the house or come with me in a jacket pocket out into the world. My wife says that I have an annoying obsession with notebooks, but it also makes me easy to buy gifts for because any occasion I’m excited to get a nice notebook. Talking about my creative process makes me a little nervous because the creative process sounds like someone who’s making fine art, not just trying to get a few silly jokes to work. My process varies but the foundational piece is just going to open mics, and shows around the city. I try to do about 10-12 shows/mics a week, and that puts pressure on me to write. Sometimes in the morning I’ll sit down and write for an hour or two, and sometimes I just scribble something down on the subway on the way to the gig. In the lead up to creating this show I did start using note cards and a cork board to organize my material, and to have an overview of which jokes needed work, and which ones I thought were finished. But really the whole thing is still very much an ongoing learning experience.
GS: What comics do you admire; despise; think are at the end of their 15 minutes?
PM: This one is a hard one for me to answer. Before I ever did stand up I was a huge huge fan, and I still am. My taste is wide ranging. I love comedians from Richard Pryor to Matteo Lane, and a lot of other ones in between. I don’t despise any comedians because I respect how hard it is to do standup, and how uncomfortable it can be especially starting out. So I don’t despise any comedians, there are just some comics who’s comedy isn’t meant for me.
GS: How do you most effectively handle hecklers?
PM: Luckily doing comedy in Berlin, and more widely in Europe you don’t run into so many hecklers. In Germany you have the opposite problem. A cold, stone faced audience that can be a real challenge to try to get any reaction from. But when I do have a heckler I always try to kill them with kindness, and let them know that my mothers would be disappointed that they were interrupting my show. And if they’re really not getting the message then I use the power of group shame, and have the rest of the audience show them how annoying they think they are.
GS: What are the five films that always get you LOL?
PM: I don’t know if I can name five films without some more serious thought, but I can tell you my number one comedy movie. Superbad. I’ve always loved the sensibility of Seth Rogan and Judd Appatow and for me that was a perfect comedy film. It perfectly captured the experience of being an awkward teenage boy in highschool, and came out while I was an awkward teenage boy in highschool. So I’ve never related to a film more than when that first came out.
GS: Is laughing through tears really a thing?
PM: I think so! I’ve alway enjoyed the feeling of making my moms laugh by saying something a little shocking. I think because of that I’ve always looked for the joke or the laugh when something hard or bad happens. My godmother who I was very close with, passed away from Parkinson’s disease. Seeing the way she cracked jokes about her illness all the way to the end was always a big inspiration to me. I think there’s no better feeling than having a laugh. So when you’re sad or something dark is going on, why not try to have a laugh? Lighten it up even if it’s just for a second.
GS: Talk about your upcoming show here in Sonoma County.
PM: I’ll be doing my one man comedy show MAMAS’ BOY Friday December 15th at the Barrel Proof Lounge in downtown Santa Rosa. I’ve spent the whole fall touring the show all over Europe, but this is the show that I am probably most excited for. It will be the first time I’ve done the show in the states, and the first time a lot of my friends and family will have had the chance to see me perform. I’m also really excited to be bringing the show back home to a place where people will understand more of the context of who I am, and what my childhood was like. A place where I won’t have to work as hard to get my cultural references across. I’ve always had a connection with Sonoma County since I was a kid. And my childhood best friend moved up to Sonoma to live and work. So it seemed like the perfect place to bring my show for it’s US debut!
GS: Is it part of a larger world tour?
PM: I guess this stop technically makes it a world tour. Europe + Sonoma county. That’s my world tour. Actually I should probably start using that in my future marketing of the show. But I have spent the fall touring the show all over Europe. I’ve performed the show in Barcelona, Dresden, Vienna, Basel, Zurich, Luxembourg, Hamburg, Prague, Innsbruck, Munich, and of course my home city of Berlin. So I’m extra excited to be bringing the show back home to the North Bay for the first time!
GS: How can folks find out more about you and find out just how hysterical you are on the magical computer machines?
If people are interested in coming to my show Friday December 15th at the Barrel Proof Lounge in downtown Santa Rosa, they can get tickets via the Eventbrite link below. Otherwise I’m online everywhere: Instagram, Youtube, Tik Tok, etc with the username @patmoorecomedy. You can also find a link to my instagram page below where I have a few short standup clips posted.
Patrick Moore was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay area, and grew up on a diet of love, attention, and tofu. In keeping with his unorthodox background, Patrick started his stand-up career in Berlin, Germany. Where he was one of the finalists in the Berlin New Stand Up Awards. He has performed all across Europe, and headlined the Burning Mic festival. He also produces many of his own shows in Berlin as well as a podcast called Hey Baby, I’m Gay. You can find his podcast, sketches, and stand-up clips by following him on Instagram/TikTok/Facebook/Youtube @patmoorecomedy.
New data shows a record-breaking number of businesses are displaying true LGBTQ+ allyship to their employees, proving they “aren’t buying” mounting anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Foundation issued its Corporate Equality Index (CEI) this week, and determined that the workforce is “more allied than ever before.”
The CEI, launched by the HRC Foundation in 2002, is a survey that measures company policies and practices regarding LGBTQ+ equality.
In its first year, 319 businesses participated to determine if their policies were up to scratch. This year, 1,384 companies took part in the review – and the results were overwhelmingly positive.
The CEI reports that a record-breaking 95 per cent of businesses reviewed have non-discrimination protections in place specifically regarding gender identity. That’s an exceptional jump from 2002’s five per cent.
A record-breaking number of businesses are displaying true LGBTQ+ allyship to their employees. (Getty Images/PinkNews)
Equally as promising is the 94 per cent of businesses that offer transgender-inclusive health insurance coverage to employees, compared to 0 per cent in 2002.
Noting that these exceptional figures come at a time when the LGBTQ+ community is under attack by people “hoping to eradicate our identity and push us back in the closet”, HRC President Kelley Robinson said that it looks like “businesses aren’t buying it.”
“The future workforce is more out and allied than ever before in our nation’s history, and this year’s CEI shows a business community looking for ways to further support LGBTQ+ workers and their families,” she added.
This year’s review also found that 70 per cent of CEI-rated businesses have guidelines and supportive policies and guidance in place to pro-actively support employees going through a gender transition, as well as their managers and colleagues.
And 63 per cent of the businesses have policies that ensure a safe and affirming environment for transgender and non-binary employees, including trans-inclusive or all-gender restrooms, gender-neutral dress codes, and how an employee’s information, such as name and pronouns, is displayed.
Of the businesses reviewed by the HRC Foundation this year, an impressive 545 companies scored a perfect 100 and will be honored with HRC’s Equality 100 Award as Leaders in LGBTQ+ Workplace Inclusion.
Companies that took part in the CEI rating range from Fortune magazine’s 500 largest publicly traded businesses, American Lawyer magazine’s top 200 revenue-grossing law firms (AmLaw 200), and hundreds of publicly and privately held mid- to large-sized businesses.
Among the companies that earned a perfect score were household names like Apple Inc., AMC Entertainment, Dominos Pizza Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Google Inc., Mars Inc., Paramount, Pfizer Inc., Visa, and Warner Music Group – to name but a few.
Commenting on this year’s optimistic findings, Rashawn Hawkins, the HRC’s Senior Director of Workplace Equality, said: “For well over two decades, businesses have played an important role in furthering LGBTQ+ equality by centering employee needs and voices when it comes to workplace inclusion.
“While there is much more work to be done, year-over-year growth in CEI participation is evidence of a business community that recognizes the responsibility and value in upholding equity and inclusion.”
Anthony Christian Ocampo, Ph.D. is Professor of Sociology at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. He is the author of The Latinos of Asia: How Filipino AmericansBreak the Rules of Race and his new book Brown and Gay in LA: The Lives of Immigrant Sons. Thank you for joining us this evening Anthony and congratulations on the publication of this incredible book.
Gary Carnivele chats with Anthony about his books and his work.
Any queer person who’s spent time on the internet has no doubt heard the tired, dismissive right-wing argument that LGBTQ+ folks are just some recent fad, that some nebulous combination of the internet, declining western values, and their favorite boogeyman, “Cultural Marxism” are to blame for the rise in visible, out queer people. This is a favorite refrain, especially when it comes to transgender folks, as anyone who’s faced the pain and ignominy of being called a “trans-trender” is well aware.
The truth, of course, is very different. The historical record is replete with individuals who in one way or another chafed against the gender and sexuality norms of their time, or in some cases subverted, ignored, or flaunted them entirely. There are countless examples of such people on record, and countless more who surely existed but were never recorded.
The stories of the individuals to follow are just a few examples of gender-nonconforming people whose lives were, at least in part, recorded in extant documents.
Note that these people are from a time period in which the word “transgender” did not exist in the public vocabulary, and thus it is rarely possible to be certain of how they might have identified, given the choice. Further, records from these eras rarely state such details as preferred pronouns. In the interest of extending respect and the benefit of the doubt, the names and pronouns used here will reflect the outward presentation these individuals seemed to prefer based on existing evidence.
Mary Jones (1803-Unknown)
Courtesy of H.R. Robinson/Wikimedia Commons.
Frequently considered to be either the first or one of the first transgender people ever recorded in an official capacity, Mary Jones was a Black American soldier and sex worker. While it cannot be determined for certain if Jones would have identified as a transgender woman if given the option, she is at the very least a prominent gender-nonconforming historical figure.
Mary Jones was AMAB (assigned male at birth) and would reportedly present as male during the day and female at night, wearing a dress, wig, and feminine jewelry. She used a prosthetic vagina in order to solicit sexual interactions with men at night, during which she would allegedly pickpocket their wallets.
Jones is most well-known for the June 1836 court case in which she was charged with Grand Larceny as a result of alleged pick-pocketing of her sex work clients. She was tried on June 16, 1836, five days after a white mason named Robert Haslem discovered his wallet containing $99 had been replaced with an empty one after soliciting sexual services from Jones.
Jones appeared in court in her female-presenting attire, a fact for which she was widely mocked and ridiculed by the court and the audience. Upon having her choice of attire questioned, Jones said:
I have been in the practice of waiting upon girls of ill fame and made up their beds and received the company at the door and received the money for rooms and they induced me to dress in women’s clothes, saying I looked so much better in them and I have always attended parties among the people of my own colour dressed in this way — and in New Orleans I always dressed in this way —
During the trial, Jones also mentioned her prior military service, which was offered as a plea for the jury’s forbearance. She flatly denied having ever laid eyes on Haslem, let alone stealing from him.
Despite pleading not guilty to the charge of Grand Larceny, Jones was ultimately convicted and sentenced to five years imprisonment in New York’s Sing Sing.
Few specifics about Jones’ life are known beyond this point. She did survive to be freed after her five-year sentence and was eventually arrested again in 1845 for once again presenting as a female sex worker and allegedly stealing money from her clients. She was released from Blackwells Island on February 15, 1846 after serving a sixth-month sentence for the repeat offense.
The details of her later arrest and imprisonment are known only because they were reported on by the Commercial Advertiser and the New York Herald. No extant records exist about her life after this point, nor is the date of her death known.
Though incessantly mocked in her time, Mary Jones has since been celebrated by historians and queer activists for her refusal to give up presenting as her authentic self even after arrests and imprisonment. She is likewise lauded for her candor when sharing her experiences as a Black gender-nonconforming person to a primarily white courtroom audience, in spite of receiving nothing but ridicule for doing so, even having her wig violently removed according to reporting by The Sun. She clearly did not let said ridicule dissuade her from living as her authentic self, given later reports of her continued public presentation as female.
Albert Cashier (1843-1915)
Courtesty of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum/Wikimedia Commons
It’s generally prudent to avoid making hard assumptions about the gender identities of people long since dead who lacked the language that exists today for expressing such things, but every once in a while one comes across a standout example of someone who, by all accounts, unambiguously lived the life of someone who would today be called transgender.
Albert Cashier, born in Ireland December 25, 1843, is one such person. Reports on his early life are contradictory and uncertain, but two things seem apparent: that despite being born AFAB (assigned female at birth), Cashier preferred to present as male from a young age, and that at some point in his early life, he traveled to the United States as a stowaway and settled in Belvedere, Illinois.
From there, records paint a somewhat clearer picture. Cashier enlisted to serve in the Civil War in July of 1862. On August 6 of the same year, Cashier officially enlisted in Company G of the 95th Illinois Infantry under the name “Albert D.J. Cashier.”
Cashier and his regiment fought in approximately 40 battles, including the Siege of Vicksburg. At one time, Cashier was captured during reconnaissance but managed to escape and return to his company.
After exemplary service in the war, Cashier returned to Belvedere, Illinois in 1865. He later settled in Saunemin, Illinois, in 1869. He would continue to live there for over forty years, and across his time in both towns, he earned his keep with a variety of odd jobs, including but not limited to church janitor, lamplighter, farmhand, and cemetery worker.
Later in life, Cashier fell ill, and his birth sex was discovered three times over the ensuing years. First, probably around 1907 (records are unclear) by his neighbors the Lannon Family, with whom he was friends. The Lannons elected to keep Cashier’s secret.
In 1911, when he broke his leg in an automobile accident, the hospital physician who treated him again discovered his birth sex, and like the Lannons, chose to keep Cashier’s confidence.
Sadly, Cashier was less lucky at the end of his life. In March of 1914, he was confined to the Watertown State Hospital due to a deteriorating case of dementia. Attendants at the hospital again discovered that he was AFAB. Unfortunately for Cashier, this time, the secret was not kept. Instead, he was forced to wear women’s clothes again after a lifetime of comfortably presenting as male.
Cashier died on October 10, 1915, tragically denied the right to live as his authentic self in his final years, as he had successfully done for the rest of his life prior to the onset of his dementia. There were, however, two silver linings. First, despite having been investigated for fraud after the discovery of his birth sex, the Veterans’ Pension Board—after speaking with the surviving members of Cashier’s regiment—elected to continue Cashier’s payments for life.
Secondly, Cashier was buried in full military uniform, his tombstone inscribed “Albert D. J. Cashier,” granting him in death the authenticity he was denied in his last years of life.
The Public Universal Friend (1752-1819)
Courtesy of David Hudson/Wikimedia Commons
The individual who would come to be known as the Public Universal Friend was born on November 29, 1752 under the name Jemima Wilkinson in Cumberland, Rhode Island. In the other stories presented here, birth names have been omitted out of respect. In the Friend’s case, however, there is no indication of discomfort with the name and sex they were assigned at birth, prior to a very specific point in their life.
Wilkinson was born to Quaker parents and grew to be both an athletic and studious child. Wilkinson was an avid reader, able to quote long passages of the Bible and prominent Quaker texts from a young age, as well as a skilled equestrian favoring energetic, spirited horses.
Little else is known about Wilkinson’s childhood, though some reports suggest they detested physical labor and favored fine, expensive clothing. These reports are considered somewhat suspect, however, as it was common at the time to fabricate narratives of decadent lifestyles to discredit those who experienced religious awakenings.
The mid-1770s represented a period of upheaval and shifting views in both Wilkinson and several other members of their family. Wilkinson began attending meetings with the New Light Baptists in Cumberland, who emphasized individual enlightenment, and let their attendance of meetings with the Society of Friend lapse. Wilkinson was ultimately dismissed for this lapse, as were several of their siblings for other reasons; their sister Patience for bearing an illegitimate child, and their brothers Stephen and Jeptha for training for military service, a violation of the Society’s pacifistic ideals.
In the wake of this upheaval, Wilkinson was stricken ill in October of 1776. Their affliction was an epidemic disease of some sort, most likely typhus. For several days, Wilkinson was on death watch, with their doctor, family, and friends unsure if they would survive.
After several bedridden days, the fever broke. Wilkinson’s body had survived the ordeal, but reported that Jemima Wilkinson had in fact died and ascended to heaven, and that the surviving body was now inhabited by a genderless spirit sent by God to preach his word: the Public Universal Friend.
From this point on, the Friend refused to answer to the name, “Jemima Wilkinson,” asking to be referred to only as the Public Universal Friend, or simply “the Friend” for short. The Friend further requested that no gendered words or terms of address be used to refer to them, stating that they were neither male nor female. They dressed in clothing considered either androgynous or masculine at the time, including long, loose clerical robes and a cravat or kerchief. When asked whether they were a man or a woman, the Friend responded by stating simply, “I am that I am.”
The Friend began to travel, preaching and amassing followers in what would come to be known as the Society of Universal Friends. They preached throughout Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, accompanied by their siblings, all of whom had been disowned from the original Society of Friends.
The content of the Friend’s sermons was very similar to that of the mainstream Quaker faith, preaching humility and hospitality to all, repentance of sins, pre-marital abstinence, and other common Quaker beliefs. The primary difference was that the Friend appears to have been overall more forgiving, welcoming all to join their flock, even if they had been disowned by mainstream Quakerism. Due to the Friend’s preaching of gender and racial equality, the Society of Universal Friends included many Black members and roughly equal numbers of men and women.
The Friend continued preaching until the death of their sister Patience in April 1819, upon whose funeral they gave their final sermon, before dying later that year on July 1. Though the Society of Universal Friends would gradually die out over the ensuing decades, the Friend left a lasting legacy due to the remarkable nature of their claims. The nature of their supposed death and resurrection, as well as their gender (or lack thereof), has been greatly debated since. The Friend’s rejection of gendered terminology and insistence that they were neither male nor female has led many to view them as a celebrated nonbinary figure from early American history.
Willmer “Little Axe” Broadnax (1916-1992)
Willmer Broadnax was born in Houston, Texas in either 1916 or 1922; records are uncertain due to confusion about his early life. Most sources refer to Willmer as the younger brother to William Boradnax. However, at least one source posits that Willmer was merely mistaken for the younger of the two brothers due to his short stature and high voice.
Either way, what is clear is that Broadnax was AFAB but presented as male from a very young age, possibly as early as 8 years old, if not earlier. In his teenage years, he began a career as a gospel singer with the St. Paul Gospel Singers, alongside his brother William.
The brothers remained with the St. Paul Gospel Singers for about a year, from 1939 to 1940, before breaking off to form their own quartet, Little Axe and the Golden Echoes. While William would eventually leave the group, Willmer remained as a lead singer through most of the 1940s.
The Golden Echoes eventually disbanded in 1949, and Willmer’s gospel career continued until 1965 with several different groups, such as the Spirit of Memphis Quartet, The Fairfield Four, and the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi. After retiring, he continued to occasionally produce new material with the Blind Boys through the 1970s and into the 80s.
Broadnax would meet a violent end in 1992 at the hands of his lover, Lavina Richardson. Broadnax had seen Richardson in a car with another man and, in an act of jealousy, bumped into the car with his own and dragged Richardson out of the vehicle and threatened her with a knife. Broadnax was subsequently disarmed by a bystander and stabbed to death by Richardson, who had picked up the knife he dropped. Richardson would later be found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; while it wasn’t quite self-defense (Broadnax had already been disarmed), Broadnax’s jealous behavior had allegedly been affecting Richardson’s mental health, prompting the judge to show leniency.
It was only discovered after Broadnax’s death that he was AFAB, meaning he managed to effectivey live an entirely lifetime presenting as male. While his short stature, naturally high voice, and apparent preference for always using the restroom alone did draw occasional suspicion, he was only ever outed posthumously.
***
The figures spotlighted here are only a drop in the ocean when it comes to the preponderance of gender-nonconforming individuals throughout history.
The recent rise in visible, out queer folk is just that, a rise in visible and out queer people; they’ve always been here, but it hasn’t always been safe to be open about it. It still isn’t, but too much progress has been made towards acceptance to give up now.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has come under fire for endorsing Starbucks, despite the coffee chain’s alleged anti-union and anti-LGBTQ+ actions over the past year.
As part of its 2023-2024 Corporate Equality Index report, the human rights group listed Starbucks Corporation among several other companies to gain a perfect score of 100 for its LGBTQ+ rights protections.
The HRC wrote that the score was given to companies that it believed “took concrete steps to establish and implement comprehensive policies, benefits and practices that ensure greater equity for LGBTQ+ workers”.
But the decision has been met with widespread criticism from LGBTQ+ activists who have argued the company has used LGBTQ+ rights as a threat in its anti-union campaign over the past few years.
Following a string of Starbucks locations unionising throughout 2022 and 2023, staff have alleged that gender-affirming care benefits under the company’s healthcare plan could be dropped if unionisation continued.
Speaking to Bloomberg in June 2022, one trans member of staff claimed that her manger used a “veiled threat” to prevent unionisation, suggesting that trans-healthcare-related benefits could worsen if a union was formed.
A spokesperson for Starbucks told CNBC at the time that the claim was false.
A similar story in June this year had the report that Starbucks workers had alleged that the company prevented staff putting up Pride decorations in one outlet.
“If Starbucks was a true ally, they would stand up for us, especially during a time when LGBTQ+ people are under attack,” a statement from Starbucks Workers United (SWU), which first aired the allegations, said.
“A company that cares wouldn’t turn their back on the LGBTQ+ community to protect their already astronomically high profits.”
In a statement given to PinkNews, Starbucks said that no change to corporate policy on Pride decorations had taken place and that it was still “unwaveringly” supportive of the community.
“Starbucks has a history that includes more than four decades of recognising and celebrating our diverse partners and customers – including year-round support for the LGBTQIA2+ community,” the statement read.
Strike action was scheduled in June after the SWU claimed that unfair labour practices and a “refusal to bargain over changes in Pride decoration policies” resulted in “hypocritical” treatment of queer workers.
Starbucks award
At the time of reporting, more than 366 Starbucks outlets, with more than 9,100 employees across the US, have unionised.
Workers are currently pressing for a higher minimum wage to help tackle the cost of living crisis, as well as fighting for “fair scheduling procedures” and guaranteed minimum hours for workers.
The company has been accused by several groups and political figures of employing union-busting tactics.
In March, senator Bernie Sanders clashed with ex-Starbucks chief executive, Howard Schultz, after the former presidential candidate accused the coffee giant of “the most aggressive and illegal union-busting campaign in the modern history of our country”.
In response, Schultz said he was confident that Starbucks had not broken the law and that officials “want to treat everyone with respect and dignity”.
The HRC gave the company five out of five for workforce protection criteria and a perfect score for corporate social responsibility.
HRC also awarded top marks to the Walt Disney Corporation, which just last year was heavily criticised for removing a same-sex kiss from the animated film Lightyear.
