There used to be a time when passing a law like same-sex marriage rights meant safety and security for those involved. However, if the controversy surrounding the draft to overturn Roe vs. Wade shows us anything, it’s that nothing is set in stone—even if it once seemed that way.
It’s never been more critical for minority groups, such as the LGBTQ community, to keep up to date with what’s happening in the political sphere. So far in 2022, GOP lawmakers have historically pushed forward hundreds of state bills seeking to erode rights for queer teens, children, and their families. This includes diminishing protections for transgender and gay youth and restricting discussions about LGBTQ topics in public schools.
It’s time to make sense of the massive disaster that is our political process and level the playing field. Using governmental resources, such as the US Senate or US Representatives website, and trusted independent sources for drafts and votes like WeWillDecide, to help gain an unbiased and complete picture of the situation.
There’s a way to level the political playing field and it’s called keeping score. Our politicians need to feel about the American public like the American public feels about the IRS during an audit. Knowledge is power, and, in this case, means knowing exactly how your congressman and representatives are voting and how this aligns with your own political ideals.
Think Small For Big Change
Data from LGBTQ rights advocacy group, Freedom for All Americans, suggests that the number of bills filed with measures to restrict LGBTQ rights has nearly quadrupled over the last three years. With over hundreds of measures pending in state legislatures across the country, the impact of informed and engaged voters could make the difference between these bills passing or not.
Using online tools to track drafts, votes, and proposals can reveal how larger change is built incrementally. Just think about who will become the next Supreme Court justice. Who votes makes a significant difference. For example, the LGBTQ community is severely underrepresented in Congress, with just 2.1% representation compared to 5.6% of the American population. How many restrictive bills would pass if the LGBTQ community was better represented?
A Right to Feel Safe
While we might not be able to create representation in Congress instantly, we can ask politicians to be allies and hold them accountable for their actions. Votes and drafts are a marker of who that politician is, so unbiased, factual records are favorable to sensationalist media. That way, we can make our own opinions on whether Roe vs. Wade is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to revoking rights.
We can all see that the war on abortion has nothing to do with babies – it is all about the control of populations. Women’s rights and LGBTQ rights have historically been aligned as both have faced violence and restrictions. Like women, those in the LGBTQ community also have a right to feel safe within our systems, with individual freedoms protected. The possibility of Roe vs. Wade being overturned has made us question the safety of everyone.
Stronger Together
All minorities combined creates a majority, and this is when change can start to happen – but we have to do the work. The bottom line is if all minorities are protected, everyone is protected. If some of us are safe and others aren’t, none of us are safe: it’s going to show up on everyone’s doorstep eventually.
We live in an age of fear-driven politics, and keeping the mechanisms of politics shrouded in secrecy and jargon is a tactic for disempowering the voting public. Knowing your representatives through online research is the best start to being your own political advocate. How else can you avoid aligning yourself with the GOP congressman trying to ban teachers from talking about LGBTQ issues with students without parental consent? Bill proposals rarely show up in the news, but they make it clear to see what a congressman is actually about.
Understanding and awareness come through critical thinking and help us build resilience to the noise. Keeping the process secret is dangerous and ingrains the belief that there’s nothing we can do to affect our situation. Humanizing our politicians and making information free and easily accessible is one way we can take the fear out of politics and communicate better with each other to make change happen.
Combating Apathy
Politicians bank on making people afraid and apathetic. If they can keep the American public in flight, flight, or freeze mode, they win when people are too distracted, exhausted, or broken down to make informed decisions. However, when enough informed people care and make an effort, tangible change will occur.
The legalization of same-sex marriage in Ireland is a fantastic example of people-power. In 2015, Irish citizens living abroad returned home in droves to make their vote as they were unable to vote from overseas or by proxy. The #hometovote took off on social media as people came together to support the LGBTQ community by sharing their experiences and encouraging each other to vote.
Politicians have been singing the same song and dance for so long, and it’s going to be up to young people, women, people of color, and the LGBTQ community to work together to shake things up. Rather than doom-scroll, why not use five minutes to search out unbiased political information or check your voter registration status instead? It’s time to learn we’re our own best advocates.
Kelly Riordan, the founder of Wewilldecide.com and a healthcare worker, is a typical frustrated voter that knew she could create a better way for the average person to obtain their political information without bias. She has no experience in politics, which she feels is an advantage in several ways, and gives her a unique point of view over those who specialize in it.
In a landmark settlement, a Maine assisted living facility has agreed to establish policies and procedures to ensure it is a welcoming place for LGBTQ seniors, after a 79-year-old transgender woman levied an accusation of discrimination.
When Marie King filed her complaint with the Maine Human Rights Commission in October, alleging that the Sunrise Assisted Living facility in the town of Jonesport refused her admission as a resident because she is transgender, it was believed to be the first complaint of this kind in U.S. history.
The settlement does not set a binding legal precedent. But legal experts nevertheless expect it to raise awareness that nursing homes and other assisted living facilities must abide by various state and federal laws barring them from discriminating against transgender people. The settlement also provides a roadmap for how such facilities can better serve the needs of LGBTQ seniors.
This development comes as more openly transgender adults are expected to enter their senior years — demographic growth in line with the overall increase in people older than 65, according to the Williams Institute. Research indicates that trans seniors are more likely than the general older population to need housing in assisted living facilities, in part because they are more prone to be alienated from family members, be in poorer health and live on lower incomes.
Marie King, 79, filed a complaint in March alleging that a long-term care facility in Maine discriminated against her for being transgender.Susan R. Symonds
At a video conference meeting based in Augusta on Monday, the Maine Human Rights Commission approved the terms of the settlement negotiated by the commission, the Boston-based GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) and the Adult Family Care Homes of Maine, which runs nine assisted living facilities in the state, including Sunrise.
“I’m thrilled to see this positive outcome,” King said in a statement issued through her attorneys at GLAD. “I believe the new policies will keep others from experiencing mistreatment and will help people understand that transgender people are only seeking to be treated with dignity and respect like anyone else.”
Adult Family Care Homes of Maine did not admit guilt as a part of the settlement and continues to deny having discriminated against King. It has pledged to adopt a comprehensive policy barring discrimination against transgender people. The company will also require all of its staff attend a training, conducted by SAGECare, an LGBTQ+ cultural competency program run by SAGE, on serving this population. The nonprofit organization focuses on improving the lives of LGBTQ+ seniors.
Chris Erchull, a staff attorney at GLAD, said that many staffers of such facilities lack the education and awareness pertaining to transgender adults and their needs, and are unsure how to comply with the law.
“This is a groundbreaking case because it spells out for people what the minimum requirements of the law are and how to make sure that they comply with it,” Erchull said.
“By no means do I think this is an isolated incident,” Karen L. Loewy, senior counsel at Lambda Legal, said of King’s case.
The Williams Institute, a think tank at the UCLA School of Law, estimates there are at least 771,000 LGBTQ adults over 65 in the United States, including 171,100 transgender seniors.
“Our research has shown that LGBT older adults face barriers to receiving formal health care and social support that heterosexual, cisgender adults do not,” said Ilan Meyer, a Williams Institute researcher. “Hopefully, other residential facilities will also implement policies consistent with this settlement.”
Nearly half of U.S. states, including Maine, bar discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in both housing and public accommodation — legal categories that apply to assisted living facilities.
In the spring of 2021, a social worker at Pen Bay Medical Center, where King was receiving medical care, sought a placement for her at Sunrise. Initially, a social worker at the long-term care facility said there were vacancies. But according to King’s complaint, when the Sunrise social worker learned she was transgender, she said they could not admit her because they did not want to place her with a cisgender woman roommate.
On March 14, 2022, the Maine Human Rights Commission voted 3 to 2 that King had reasonable grounds to claim that Sunrise discriminated against her on the basis of her gender identity, transgender status and sex, all of which are protected under the Maine Human Rights Act. This opened the door for the commission to potentially file a lawsuit.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is in the process of conducting its own investigation to determine if Sunrise’s alleged refusal to admit King as a resident violated the sex discrimination provisions of the Affordable Care Act. Courts have interpreted the 2010 law as barring discrimination based on gender identity in health care settings that receive federal funds, including assisted living facilities.
Additionally, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2020 Bostock v. Clayton decision established protection for LGBTQ people against workplace discrimination.
In an emailed statement to NBC News, John K. Hamer, an attorney at Rudman Winchell in Boston, which represents Adult Family Care Homes of Maine, said that the Sunrise social worker told King’s social worker that Sunrise “was not an appropriate place for Ms. King” because of the possibility that a cisgender woman roommate “was not comfortable having a transgender roommate.”
“However,” Hamer stated, “Sunrise Assisted Living would not have denied Ms. King residency based on her transgender status had she applied for residency. Ms. King just never applied.”
He added that Sunrise “is happy to work with GLAD to enhance its existing policies and to provide training to ensure that such a miscommunication does not happen again.”
As a part of the settlement, the facility has agreed to provide a $1,000 payment to King and an $8,500 payment to GLAD for attorneys fees.
Aaron Tax, managing director of government affairs and policy advocacy at SAGE, said that the details of King’s case “speak to the need for comprehensive, explicit national civil rights protections” for LGBTQ older people.
Sarah Warbelow, legal director at the Human Rights Campaign, pointed to survey data indicating that 70% of Americans support nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ Americans. She said that the Maine settlement “really represents what people think should be happening: that LGBTQ folks have access to remedies when they experience discrimination.”
Czech president Miloš Zeman has said he plans to veto proposed legislation that would give same-sex couples the right to get married in the country.
The measure, which was drafted by lawmakers across the Czech political spectrum, was submitted to the parliament’s lower house on Tuesday (7 June), the Associated Pressreported.
Lawmakers have yet to set a date to debate the proposed same-sex marriage legislation. Yet the country’s president has said he is strongly opposed to the measure and will strike it down should it even land on his desk.
“I’d like to announce that if I really receive such a law to sign I will veto it,” Zeman said.
Miloš Zeman has served as the president of the Czech Republic since 2013. The president is considered a largely ceremonial role as the elected leader has limited executive powers, but he does have a considerable role in political affairs.
Zeman said that the Czech Republic passed a law in 2006 allowing same-sex couples to enter into registered partnerships, but he believed “family is a union between a man and a woman”, “full stop”.
Czech president Miloš Zeman said he believes “family is a union between a man and a woman”, “full stop”. (Getty/Mikhail Svetlov)
The registered partnership gives queer couples in the Czech Republic some rights similar to those of heterosexual married couples, but it stops short of placing same-sex couples on fully equal footing with their heterosexual counterparts.
Same-sex marriage remains illegal in the country because marriage is defined as a union between a man and a woman under the Czech Republic’s civil code.
Parliament started debating similar same-sex marriage legislation back in 2018, but the legislation stalled as lawmakers didn’t take a vote before last year’s general election. The measure had to then be re-submitted for debate.
Lawmakers in the Czech parliament’s lower house can override Zeman’s veto if they can reach a majority vote.
Miloš Zeman has often espoused anti-LGBTQ+ views in the past. Last June, Zeman said he finds trans people “disgusting” while discussing Hungary’s so-called LGBTQ+ ‘propaganda’ law, which bans any depiction or discussion of queer people in schools, the media and advertising.
Zema said he thought people who undergo gender-affirming treatments are “basically committing a crime of self-harm”.
“Every surgery is a risk, and these transgender people to me are disgusting,” he added.
The number of queer bars is declining nationwide according to a new study examining the effects of the COVID-19 lockdowns on U.S. LGBTQ spaces. The study’s author, Greggor Mattson, a professor of Sociology at Oberlin College who also curates the Who Needs Gay Bars project on Twitter, found that between 2019 and Spring 2021, the number of gay bars in the U.S. dropped by about 15%.
Compared with the similar decline between 2017 and 2019, Mattson writes, this indicates a steady rate of decline in recent years.
Mattson and his researchers compared historical from the Damron Travel Guide and compared it to an online census of gay bars taken from February to May of 2021.
“36.6% of gay bar listings disappeared between 2007 and 2019,” Mattson tells Chicago’s ABC7 News. “So more than a third of gay bars closed in a 12-year period.”
According to the study, bars serving LGBTQ people of color fared particularly poorly, dropping by nearly 24% between 2019 and Spring 2021. Meanwhile, Mattson and his associates found that no lesbian closed during the pandemic, possibly due to “intensive media and philanthropic attention,” including from the Lesbian Bar Project.
The potential causes for the decline in gay bars around the U.S. cited by Mattson are, on their face, positive. Social equality and greater acceptance of LGBTQ people have led to more welcoming attitudes in bars that don’t cater specifically to the community, as well as a greater willingness of queer people to socialize in non-gay venues. There’s also the rise of social media and the prevalence of location-based apps like Grinder and Scruff that allow LGBTQ people to meet virtually.
The study cautions, however that “Rates of change in listings may not reflect actual changes in the number of establishments.” It also suggests that the decline in gay bar listings was not dramatically increased by the pandemic.
Still, Mattson finds the numbers troubling. “In most parts of the country, gay bars are the only public LGBTQ+ place,” he says. “In other words, they’re the only place where queer people can reliably encounter other queer people in public.”
That could certainly have larger implications for LGBTQ culture. “If the only bar with a purpose-built drag stage closes, then it leaves drag queens and drag kings without a place to practice their art,” Mattson added. “If they’re doing diverse things, then I get really sad when such a bar goes away because they’re special.”
More than 50 years after the famous Stonewall riots, the only Pride Month tradition more predictable than big city parades in June are the perennial complaints about the “commodification” of the gay rights movement.
These days, the month often features corporations and consumer brands participating in the celebrations, with bright rainbow packaging and gay-themed items for sale. Instead of this salutary sign of inclusion and tolerance being welcomed, however, it routinely gets attacked.
Claiming that a gay person needs to vote for a certain party or situate themselves on a certain point of the ideological spectrum is — to use some of today’s pop psychology terms — gatekeeping and gaslighting.
Critics often insist that corporations’ commitment to gay pride is shallow and self-serving, or that rainbow-themed merchandise and advertising during June end up tokenizing rather than celebrating the community. In the run-up to Pride Month, a typical tweet sarcastically enthused “2 days until companies pretend to care about us!,” while journalist Sherina Poyyail wrote an article titled “Why Rainbow Capitalism Is Making Me Start To Dread Pride Month As A Queer Person.”
While these critics claim that corporations are missing the true meaning of the season, they’re the ones missing the point of Pride Month. Buying a T-shirt with the phrase “Love Is Not a Crime” from Target won’t, on its own, change the world or end anti-gay discrimination. A person who wears it may hope to have some marginal positive effect on the people around, but it’s primarily an individual choice about self-expression.
Though there are historical connections between the gay rights movement and opposing capitalism, it’s a mistake for the LGBTQ community today to embrace an anti-corporate attitude. The desire to associate gay identity with a particular part of the political spectrum doesn’t reflect the community’s diversity and can actively alienate people who are not part of that political group — at the expense of the interests of the community as a whole.
What was originally known as the “gay liberation” movement was born out of a wide-ranging cultural ferment on the left in the 1960s and early 1970s that also gave rise to the women’s liberation, anti-war and Black power movements, a cross-pollination among activists groups described in Cornell University’s archive on the history of gay activism.
Given this background, and aided by the fact that their conservative antagonists were generally in favor of free-market economic policies, gay rights activists during the 1970s were associated with a hostility toward capitalism, markets and corporations.
This was not entirely by default — some gay activists were committed socialists who thought the two struggles were closely linked. The socialist theorizers in favor of liberation via class struggle and the abolition of private property, however, were a small minority of the movement. Gay historian Martin Duberman, an activist himself, readily admits that “The gay left — like every other kind of left in this country — has rarely represented more than a small minority.”
But that link between gay rights and hostility toward free markets continues to exist for some people today. Union organizer Meghan Brophy, for instance, epitomized this viewpoint when she wrote for the socialist magazine Jacobin in 2019 that “the greatest gains for the LGBTQ movement came through fighting corporations.”
The actual history of gay pride and corporate America, however, is much more positive and collaborative. Rutgers law professor Carlos A. Ball deftly tells this history in his book, “The Queering of Corporate America” (also out in 2019). Ball, a progressive who has plenty of criticism for corporations, documents how U.S. companies— often persuaded by internal affinity groups formed by their own gay employees — implemented nondiscriminatory hiring rules and extended benefits to same-sex domestic partners when virtually no national politicians were willing to support such policies publicly. For most of the late 20th century, the private sector well outpaced the political establishment on gay rights.
So while many early gay radicals were understandably suspicious of corporate America, we can now safely say that those worries were overstated — and, at times, based on pre-existing ideological commitments that had little to do with sexual freedom or civil rights. Someone who happens to be an advocate for both gay rights and socialist politics is free to try to link those two goals, but I as a gay man living in the 21st century don’t have to accept that they are connected. And it’s weirdly old-fashioned to be repeating hippie-era denunciations of big business when one of the world’s most valuable corporations is led by an openly gay CEO.
Even if it was the case that most gay people were clustered at one end of the political spectrum in previous generations (impossible to say because of the lack of polling), that’s not true today. While non-straight Americans are more likely to be Democrats than Republicans, a 2020 study by UCLA’s William Institute found that “LGBT people, like other minority groups, hold diverse beliefs and political affiliations.”
Claiming that a gay person needs to vote for a certain party or situate themselves on a certain point of the ideological spectrum is — to use some of today’s pop psychology terms — gatekeeping and gaslighting. Fox News contributor Guy Benson, for example, has described how after he came out, critics of his politics insisted he must be a “self-hating gay person.” To suggest that you can’t be out and proud without being a progressive who thinks corporations are evil is an offensive attempt to program someone else’s identity.
Moreover, it’s exactly the kind of high-handed effort that activists have rightly denounced in other contexts. Progressives would never accept conservatives insisting that they can’t be both gay and Christian. Why would I accept that I can’t (or shouldn’t) be gay and libertarian? And does it really make sense to turn down offers of support for gay causes and events from big business just to strike a stylishly militant pose?
That is not to say that the two major parties in America are equally aligned on policy issues affecting gay people. It has been a long time since the 1980s, during which, as historian Clayton Howard told FiveThirtyEight in 2021, “a lot of Democrats were indistinguishable from Republicans on gay issues.”
GOP majorities in many states have recently backed laws that critics characterize as anti-gay and that most Democrats strongly oppose. But if gay rights supporters want broader, rather than narrower national support, tying their agenda to unrelated economic stances will only further diminish the pool of potential allies.
It’s weirdly old-fashioned to be repeating hippie-era denunciations of big business when one of the world’s most valuable corporations is led by an openly gay CEO.
While it is perhaps inevitable that institutions that are inherently political (because they are controlled by the government) will be flashpoints in the culture wars, the private part of society based on markets, competition and voluntary association has a much greater opportunity to defuse conflict — if we allow it to stay private and voluntary.
This is not because the institutions of civil society necessarily bring us all together, but because they allow us to live and work in our own chosen worlds and build our own chosen families. No corporation can dictate your living conditions the way the government can — but they can supply you with many of the desirable accouterments of out and proud living.
The United States is a country with a long history of market-driven innovation, growth and success, and gay people have been a big part of that. While some skeptics will always be cynical about the motives of pride-themed products and marketing campaigns, the rainbow packaging on store shelves is a stunning advance from a time when many companies were worried that having a single openly gay employee would lose them customers and cost them money. Even a socialist revolutionary should be able to celebrate that.
Thailand is set to go down in history as the first Southeast Asian country to legalise same-sex unions after approving a historic bill.
The country’s Cabinet has approved draft legislation which will allow same-sex couples to register their partnership in Thailand, Bloombergreported. The bill avoids the term ‘marriage’, but it will allow same-sex couples rights to jointly own property, adopt children and have inheritance rights between partners.
The bill now goes to the country’s Parliament for approval before it can become law. If passed into law, Thailand would be the first Southeast Asian country to approve such legislation.
Deputy government spokeswoman Rachada Dhnadirek said Tuesday (7 June) that the Cabinet endorsed an earlier version of the bill, which was sponsored by the justice ministry in July 2020. But she said the government needed to study the bill and get public feedback before it was approved.
“The Civil Partnership Bill is a milestone for Thai society in promoting equality among people of all genders,” Dhnadirek said back in July. “This strengthens the families of people with sexual diversity and is appropriate for the present social circumstances.”
Under the proposed legislation, civil partnerships are defined as couples of the same sex, and people in the relationship must be at least 17-years-old to register, Bangkok Postreported. At least one person in the relationship must be a Thai national.
Members of the LGBTQ+ have criticised Thailand’s Civil Partnership Bill for not going far enough to promote queer rights in the country. (Anusak Laowilas/NurPhoto via Getty)
Advocates have argued that the bill is a big step forward for LGBTQ+ rights in Thailand, but they have argued that it doesn’t go far enough.
Tattep Ruangprapaikitseree, LGBTQ+ activist and secretary-general of progressive youth organisation Free Youth, said the bill “isn’t a milestone for gender equality in Thailand”, CNNreported. Instead, Tattep argued it’s an “obstacle to reach marriage for all”.
Tanwarin Sukkhapisit, filmmaker and first trans member of parliament under the Move Forward Party, questioned why the legislation won’t “just call everyone, both traditional and non-traditional couples, as married partners”.
“This is another form of discrimination in disguise,” Tanwarin said. “We don’t want anything special we just want to be treated like others.”
For its historic and social significance to San Fernando Valley and the LGBTQ+ community, Oil Can Harry’s was recognized by The Los Angeles City Council as a Historic-Cultural Monument in May.
Oil Can Harry’s opened in 1968 and was the longest-running LGBTQ+ bar in the city until December of 2021, according to a report from USA Today. The new owners have decided to pursue a jazz venue, according to an update from Oil Can Harry’s website.
In a 14-0 vote, Oil Can Harry’s building at 11502 Ventura Blvd. became the third LGBTQ+ structure that has received the designation since the first, Black Cat in Silver Lake, in 2008, and among 1,200 other historic landmarks in Los Angeles.
“When Oil Can Harry’s opened in Studio City in 1968, it was illegal in Los Angeles for two men or two women to dance together,” 2nd District Councilman Paul Krekorian, who initiated the effort to secure monument status for the site that’s located in his district, said in a statement.
A Wednesday morning fire in Baltimore that put three people in the hospital is being investigated as a possible hate crime, authorities told WJZ.
Based on a preliminary investigation, authorities believe someone set fire to at least one Pride flag outside a row home in the 300 block of E. 31st Street and the flames spread to the home and neighboring homes, a Baltimore Police spokesperson said.
Three victims were taken to Shock Trauma for treatment, he said. A 30-year-old woman and 57-year-old man were hospitalized in critical condition, and a 74-year-old man is in serious condition, the Baltimore City Fire Department told WJZ.
When his golden-haired, blue-eyed brother Jimmy mysteriously died in Vietnam in 1975, gay filmmaker Peter McDowell was just a kid, growing up within his family’s “veil of silence.” As an adult, armed with a video camera, Peter embarks on a quest to uncover the possibly queer brother he never knew. Plotted like a terrific detective story, Jimmy in Saigon follows Peter’s search for the truth about the strikingly enigmatic Jimmy—a rebellious kid drafted into the war, who stunned his family by returning to Saigon after his tour of duty to enjoy “hedonistic pleasures.”
The film will screen at Frameline 46 San Francisco International LGBTQ Film Festival at the Castro Theatre June 19 at 1:15 p.m. It will be available for streaming online June 24 – 30. For tickets and more information go to www.frameline.org
Gaysonoma’s Gary Carnivele recently interviewed director Peter McDowell.
Gary Carnivele: Congratulations on the success of “Jimmy and Saigon” Peter.
Peter McDowell: Thank you.
GC: Tell us a bit about your education on professional background
PM: I’ve been interested in film my whole life. I made some short films as a kid and an ended up interested in opera. Then I got my degree in arts administration and arts management and I ended up working for a short time for the San Francisco Opera in the early 90s. Then I went into a big career in arts management in San Francisco, Chicago, and New York. I made a few short films in San Francisco in the 90s that were in Frameline in ’94 and ’95. Then, I kind of let the filmmaking go for a while and it wasn’t until 2010 that I decided to take it up again with the with this project.
GC: Talk about your brother Jimmy and the impact his life and experiences had on you and your family.
PM: I’m originally from Champagne Urbana Illinois, the college town in the middle of Illinois about 2 1/2 hours south of Chicago. I’m the youngest of six children. Good Catholic family. Most of my siblings and I were born in the 50s and 60s. My brother Jimmy was the oldest in the family born in 1948. He was almost 20 years older than I and he died in 1972 when I was five years old. He was 24 when he died under somewhat mysterious circumstances in Saigon, Vietnam and of course I was just a little kid I remember when he died. I remember the terror and agony in my house when everybody found out. I’m not sure I was aware of who he was at that young age. I have some lovely pictures of the two of us together that prove that we definitely spent time together. I’m so sorry that I don’t really remember those times. I’ve always been very drawn in by history and wanted to know a lot more about Jimmy.
GC: In 2010, you decided to make the film. At the time did you see the structure of the film or did you just think I want to start investigating what happened and I’ll see if there’s a film there?
PM: The latter. I decided to just go for it. The task that I gave myself was to try to interview everybody that ever knew him, almost 40 years after he died. Other people I contacted were floored to hear from me because they hadn’t been in touch with anyone in our family at all since he died. So I set off just trying to talk to all these people as well as members of my family and I really thought at that point that I would be going to Vietnam right away. My goal was to go to Vietnam and try to see if I could walk in his footsteps and retrace his steps and also try to find some people that he knew/. It took me a good six years. I started in 2010 and it took me about six years to get to Vietnam.
GR: What surprised you most about Jimmy’s service in Vietnam, his decision to return soon after the end of the war, and his life after he return to Vietnam?
PM: I’m lucky that my brother left behind about 200 letters and he wrote tons of letters to my mom. My mom is the most fabulous pack rat who saves everything. Thank goodness she had his letters. One of my brother’s friends is a former librarian and stored in archived all of his letters from Jimmy. I have this sort of treasure trove of letters and I tried to piece together his life. A couple of things surprised me and it was very surprising to everybody that he went back as a civilian. He was in the army, did his duty and recieved an honorable discharge. Then within six months he decided to return to Vietnam, which was unheard of – nobody really did that at the time and then I noticed some inconsistencies of things that he was saying to some friends but not to others. Some things that he said my mother were actually not true and so I realized he was probably hiding something if he was making up some things
GC: Were you prepared for what you would find out in Vietnam or were you truly surprised?
PM: I really had no idea. I was looking for people that knew him and I didn’t know whether they would be alive or dead. I didn’t know if they would still be living there or know the answers to my questions. I cannot say publicly because you have to go see the film to find out whether they’re alive or dead or whether I found them or where they were. I didn’t necessarily know that much. I had some hunches and some suspicions. I came upon a major discovery in 2018 that changed everything and allowed me to finish the film.
GC: Talk about some of the people you did meet in Vietnam who you would like to talk about that won’t reveal too much about the film. There are some fascinating twists and turns.
PM: One of the things I found out about my brother is that he loved living there. Maybe I would love it too and it was very kind of heartwarming to me that that when I went for the first time. I went twice but when I went first time in 2016 I truly am almost immediately felt that love for the country and I found it very curious and hopeful and energetic and fun and really engaging. There’s a segment of the film where we see me going down this rabbit hole – little streets – to try to find anything. I met so many people who said come with me in an effort to help me on my quest. There were a lot of false starts. I eventually met a couple of Vietnamese women who are a combination of super strong women, who’ve been through a lot, very empathetic, very earthy and very intelligent. Many of the people I was coming across were people who lived in great poverty and without formal educations so I was really impressed by the level in which we communicated about deeply emotional things, about the level of emotional intelligence. Some of these people have been through unspeakable trauma of losing family members, losing children, losing their property, losing everything. Essentially the same between the late 60s until the early 90s was really just hell in Vietnam and I think people lived through so much and the people that survived and are still around today to talk about it have this real resilience that I admire. It’s remarkable that the Vietnamese are so resilient and so willing to forgive. You know most Americans who lived through the Vietnam war zone are traumatized by what happened so it’s just hard to fathom how these folks felt.
GC: Did you come to an understanding as to why Jimmy felt so safe going back to Vietnam?
PM: I think safety means different things to different people. I think he knew he was in danger physically because of the war but I think emotionally he felt kind of at home and comforted and protected by being in Vietnam. There’s a line in the film – it’s in one of his letters – where he writes: “I can’t stand the United States.” Jimmy was 24-years-old when he wrote this. Jimmy is going through a lot of angst. A lot of people were feeling at the time of the Vietnam war in the counterculture movement real frustration. I’m really fascinated by the fact that this is the 50- year anniversary my brother’s death. He died on June 6, 1972 exactly 50 years ago so it really gives us a moment to take a pause and look back and see what was happening 50 years ago and if I, a gay man, look back and see like what happened in the world over the last 50 years. Well, a lot of things didn’t happen until after Stonewall. The first pride marches kind of started around country in the 70s but it was the landmark American Psychiatric Association ruling that being LGBT was not a disease also in the 70s, so it was a really fertile time for a change. It was a time that I am I am deeply fascinated by.
GC: You’ve really been raking in the laurels at film festivals all around the world. What are some of the experiences where you were present and able to gauge the reaction of the audiences?
PM: Thank you. It’s been an incredible experience. Our world premiere was at the British Film Institute Flare Film Festival which started off as the London LGBTQ Film Festival. It was an absolutely rapturous experience, partially because I think that it was one of the first things to really come roaring out of the pandemic – not to say that we’re totally post-pandemic but in London in March we felt comfortable going out in public and feel comfortable going into theaters and so we had a screenings at the BFI Southbank space in London. I haven’t been to London in 14 years and I was blown away by the kindness and the warmth of the British audiences. People came up to me afterwards to talk about the film people lit up my Twitter account account and was added as part of their best so London was just an exceptional experience. From there we went to Miami and had a great time in Miami at the Outshine Film Festival estival there to the lovers phone customer which is apparently the oldest festival festival Europe and I was in Torino Italy for the week and we ended up winning the top award
GC: That’s really impressive! You have attended Frameline with two short film, but this is your first full-length film at the world’s biggest LGBT+ film festival. How excited were you to learn that “Jimmy in Saigon” would be screened there this year.
PM: I was over the moon! San Francisco is my home away from home. I currently live in LA but I lived in San Francisco twice. I lived there in the mid 90s. I worked at San Francisco Opera and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. I’m really fond of the city. I also came back briefly in the 2000s and lived in Berkeley which I also love so it’s really important for me to be able to showcase the film in the city where I have so many friends and I have so much love. The Castro Theatre just takes the cake for me. The film has been screened in a lot of 100-seat theaters around the world, which is great and I love them for that nice intimacy but this will be the first time in a huge theater. The Castro has 1400 seats, so it will be great to see how it looks in and sounds in the historic theatre.
GC: What’s the date and time of the of the screening?
PM: It’s on Sunday, June 19 at 1:15 p.m., which is Father’s Day and Juneteenth which is you know not really related to my film but it’s a day of celebration and healing and I hope people can come out to see a film that is also both a celebration and ultimately healing.
GC: Tell us about your family members’ reaction when you informed them of your decision to make the film and then what their reaction was when they first saw the film?
PM: The genre of documentaries that I made it’s called personal documentary it’s considered an unique art form because the filmmaker will put themselves in the phone because they know the audience wants to know the experience of what’s happening. 12 years ago, I went to my mom and I said I want to do this project, I want to use the letters you wrote and received. It’s an oral history of my family. I said I wanted to interview everybody whoever knew my brother and my mom was on board with that. She gave me a lot of names of people. I bought a camera and sound equipment, using my last couple bucks. I started interviewing everybody that I could, including everybody in my family. My mom has been incredibly participatory in the film. I interviewed her many times. She doesn’t want to see the film. She made a security line in the sand. Jimmy was her first child and she is still really broken up about the fact that he died at age 24, so she can’t bring herself to see it. She sort of apologized to me profusely for that. I don’t want it to reflect on her love for me or my film and I totally get it. I totally appreciate it. One of my brothers is hesitant to see it, but he might come around. My other brother, John, is actively involved in the film as the film’s composer. He wrote the soundtrack to the film. We worked on it every day for a year, so he’s seen it many times. My sister and I attended the Sonoma International Film Festival where “Jimmy in Saigon” was screened. My other sister who’s seen an early version of it but hasn’t seen the finished film yet. My family is super supportive and happy about it. There’s a little bit of the film about some of their initial resistance and when I revealed that it wasn’t just a history project but rather a work of art that I would like to share with the public. That took a little bit of adjusting to realize that your family stories would be out there and Jimmy’s story would be really, really out there.
GC: What are you hoping audiences take away from “Jimmy in Saigon?”
PM: I would say that I created this first and foremost as a cinematic therapeutic device for my family. People asked me did I get the closure or the healing that I hoped for and I say I don’t really believe in closure. I mean, no death is something that’s come to some sort of acceptance but it’s really hard to come to closure. I will say that I do think that our family has whether it’s related to the summer not I think our film families come closer together. A lot of audience members are really touched because they had a type of trauma in their family. I recently met some people that were in tears when I just told him about the story of the film and they said my uncle or my nephew sexuality or drug abuse or you know you’re right all these things that are really sad and deep and close to our hearts and most families haven’t I think people are really reacting to that. I even know a couple of men who had lovers in other countries where they had done it had difficulty with him being able to legally continue the relationship and they had tears in their eyes as well so I think it affects a lot of different people and I’m really pleased with
GC: In your documentary you touch on a good number of universal themes that many people can relate to. Most everyone’s lost a family member, many people have family members or close friends who had to fight wars. Obviously, this is a well thought out documentary, but were all these themes you set out in the beginning to explore or did you find yourself going down roads while making the film that you didn’t see that you would be going down?
PM: Yes, I did. I think mostly the roads that I didn’t see it going down were there the roads of contextualization meaning like I thought I was just going to tell Jimmy’s story from beginning to end or my story and making the phone but we realize we were putting it together that we needed to contextualize the story because I’m 54 and a lot of people in their 20s 30s maybe 40s and some teenagers they don’t really I know what the Vietnam War was like what the political climate was like in the 60s and 70s they may not have known how it was for gay people and even in the 80s which I talk about my coming out so you know a lot of them are sort of contextualization and laying out of history not only you know you are some world history but also my family and my purse Understand it and that was that was not something I anticipated but I think it’s something that works well.
GC: What future film festivals will include “Jimmy in Saigon?”
PM: We just announced three more film festivals in kind of smaller but important cites were going to be in Bentonville Arkansas which is a film festival that’s run by Gina Davis and Sandra Bullock so that’s exciting in the sort of new arts hub in Arkansas. We’re going to be in Des Moines Iowa on June 24 and then will be in Nyack New York, which is just outside of New York City, on August 15. There’s a bunch more screenings in the US and abroad on our website: saigon.com. There’s a place for people to sign up for emails so that they can learn about upcoming screenings and any word on a distribution. We’d love to get it out as a theatrical release so that it could be in some art houses around the country. We’d love to get it on PBS in this country as well as educational TV in other countries and I know eventually it will be available for streaming. That doesn’t usually come at the beginning of a film’s lifecycle. Frameline is offering a limited number of tickets for a limited number of days to see it on their streaming format.
GC: I know you’re in the midst of promoting “Jimmy in Saigon,” but have you started to think about what your next project will be?
PM: I’m not ready to rush back into another film project. I’m kind of like a parent that is just getting settled into parenthood. I do love documentaries and I love music and I’d love to make a music documentary, maybe multiple music documentaries. It was brought to my attention that “Jimmy in Saigon” is 70% music and I thought that was very touching as my brother Jimmy loved music. There’s a band that I love that I would love to make a documentary called The Roches. Love to throw my hat in the ring to make that documentary.
GC: I love the Roaches! Such a great band. I’ll be looking for that, fo sure. Thank you so much for joining us tonight Peter and best of luck with “Jimmy and Saigon” and all your future projects. Please come back when the next film is released.
PM: Thank you, Gary, I really enjoyed talking to you.
