Latest / Queer Voices / August 29th - MARY's on exhibit, Mildred's Umbrella unleashes COLLECTIVE RAGE, and News Wrap

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August 29th - MARY's on exhibit, Mildred's Umbrella unleashes COLLECTIVE RAGE, and News Wrap · Queer Voices

• 0:02
  Brett: You're listening to Queer Voices on KPFT Houston.
• 0:06
  Brett: I am Brett Cullum.
• 0:07
  Brett: On this episode, we have Lloyd Powell and Robert Kahn talking about the Mary's naturally bar tops that are going to be on display at the match this coming month in September.
• 0:19
  Brett: We also have Brett Martinez and Cindy Wang from Mildred's Umbrellas production of Jen Silverman's Collective Rage.
• 0:28
  Brett: That is going to be running in September as well.
• 0:30
  Brett: We are so glad that you are here.
• 0:33
  Brett: Queer Voices starts now.
• 0:39
  Brett: Hi there, and this is Brett Cullum, and today I'm joined by Lloyd Powell, also known as Daddy Lloyd.
• 0:45
  Brett: He is a fundraiser, an activist, and an icon of the LGBTQIA Plus community.
• 0:50
  Brett: He served as a longtime chairman of the Houston Council of Clubs, helped organize the historic Louie weekend events.
• 0:57
  Brett: He has won all sorts of kink and bear titles and known for his unique charisma and appeal in that world as well.
• 1:03
  Brett: He is currently the director of Heart of Leather, who is planning a public display of the bar tops from Mary's Naturally.
• 1:11
  Brett: They will be exhibited September 9th through the 12th at MATS, the Midtown Arts and Theater Center Houston.
• 1:17
  Brett: So welcome, Lloyd.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_05: Well, thank you very much.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_05: And with me, we've got Robert Kahn, who is my husband of 30, or my partner of 31 years, husband just since 2017.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_05: But oh just since.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, since.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, yes, yes, yes.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_05: And we've we've done pretty much most of that that you just talked about side by side all these years, as well as raised two sons and now have six grandchildren.
• 1:42
  Brett: Wait, two sons?
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_05: My gosh.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_05: All right.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_05: Well, bless you.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_05: Did I say 31?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_05: Oh well.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_05: Don't listen to what I say.
• 1:52
  Brett: Just uh listen to what you think I say.
• 1:54
  Brett: All right.
• 1:54
  Brett: I'm fine.
• 1:55
  Brett: I I'm glad to have the the ride-along and your ride or die with you.
• 1:59
  Brett: Now, Mary's naturally, the bar, it opened in 1972, closed in 2009.
• 2:05
  Brett: When did you all get these bar tops?
• 2:09
  Brett: And if people know it's it's they're photos, basically.
• 2:12
  Brett: No, we have we have the bar top.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_03: Well, heyman, right that's covered in photos.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_05: That's covered in photos, yes.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, I'm sorry.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_05: If I'm mistaken.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_05: No, no problem.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, we yeah, we have all the physical evidence, absolutely.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_03: Heart of Leather was formerly known as Gulf Coast Archiven Museum of LGBT History, Inc., also known as G Cam.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_03: G CAM actually got the bar tops several months after the bar closed in 2009.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_03: There was already an agreement that they would receive them knowing that the bar was closing.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_03: When it closed, everything got locked up and we didn't get access to them.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_03: And the building got broken into a couple of times, and the the bar pieces actually got damaged and and basically ripped out.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_03: Instead of letting G Cam come in and take them out carefully, they got ripped out.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_03: So that's why their pieces are not, they're broken.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_05: They're they're broken.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_05: The ends are frayed and shattered and all that.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_05: But now it's just another piece of their history.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_05: So that's they're they're still in, you know, in our eyes, they're still absolutely beautiful.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_05: And yeah, they can bring me to tears.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know if these bar tops could talk.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_05: And one of the most exciting things that's happened recently is the fact that a photographer here in Houston by the name of Chad Redmond, who has photographed some of the finest arts in the world, including tapestries and historical pieces, has used some of the world's most advanced photography equipment to dig down into the layers of urethane that's over the photos that are on the bar tops to bring out the best colors possible.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_05: And the bar tops have been photographed, and then now there's a team of people working on piecing those partial images together so that we can get all of that online ultimately.
• 4:12
  Brett: Wow.
• 4:13
  Brett: Yeah, no, that's amazing.
• 4:14
  Brett: I mean, and it's hard to believe.
• 4:16
  Brett: How do you know how these bar tops were even made back in the day?
• 4:20
  Brett: Like, did they just slip these underneath the thing and then put the polyurethane on them?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_05: Or what no, actually actually the the owner at the time, Fanny Farmer, you know, saw a lot of his customers dying of AIDS, and this was in the mid-80s, and he's like, you know, we're gonna do something to commemorate all these people, and started laying the photos down, and whatever it whatever type of resin it was that he put over them.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, it's it's there.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_05: It's it's it's a bit discolored.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_05: Of course, some of the bar tops were in the bar inside, some of the bar tops were in the bar outside, so some are in better shape than others, but you can still see through all of that to see what the photos are.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_05: So we're very excited just to have them and keep them safe and hopefully be able to ultimately restore some of the clarity to it.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_05: But in the meantime, the photography is gonna work beautifully.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 5:16
  Brett: Now you've got the match, September 9th through the 12th.
• 5:19
  Brett: It's are you gonna be in the exhibition hall or are you gonna be in one of the actual match spaces?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_05: It is it is the entire gallery there.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_05: It's a 3,000 square foot gallery.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_05: So we have the whole thing, and we are not we're going to show the entire the entire Mary's bar top, you know, collection, and then there will be additional smaller exhibits that basically represent just different parts of the community that made up the patrons of Mary's, which was just everybody, really.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_05: And if you if you were ever actually at Mary's and you saw the things that went on there, there will be remnants, even if we just have to recreate them, and some of them will make you giggle, but they'll bring back some really fond and sexy memories for some people.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_05: There's always a good time at Mary's.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, definitely.
• 6:07
  Brett: Very interesting.
• 6:08
  Brett: And and it tied to your Louis past too.
• 6:10
  Brett: I mean, Mary's was a big host of Louie for many years.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:14
  Brett: So, I mean, and those those were some wild parties too.
• 6:17
  Brett: So the public can see them September 9th through the 12th.
• 6:20
  Brett: Is it it's just they walk in and see them like at any time where they're specific that are gonna be there?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_05: We the hours, the hours we set, and I can't I can't remember what they are at the moment.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_05: Honestly, I can't remember exactly what they are.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_05: I I will tell you though, that we are plan planning on opening up at 10 o'clock on Saturday, the less the last day.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_05: So from 10 till noon, we're gonna about to start putting the word out for those people who spent time at Mary's to come on over, spend a couple of hours.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_05: We'll set a bunch of chairs out, and everybody can just sit around.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_05: And we'd love to hear some of your favorite memories of being at Mary's.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_03: And we'll record those.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_05: We yeah, those will be recorded.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_05: So yeah, yeah.
• 7:05
  Brett: That's great.
• 7:06
  Brett: Well, tell me a little bit about Heart of Leather, this organization now.
• 7:10
  Brett: And and you had referenced earlier that it's it's what GCAM has evolved into.
• 7:15
  Brett: Yep, correct.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_03: G Cam started with 13 people by 2024.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_03: There was pretty much one person left, and that's Judy trying to keep a hold of all of this stuff in Minnesota.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_03: So she started talking to us about that before.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_03: And in October of 2024, we actually made the transition.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_03: And at first, we were just going to be keeping the leather portion of the community in and and we realized that we can't do that because our community, the Houston community in particular, is so unique in that everybody works together.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_03: We don't, we don't have a leather community and a drag community and a you know, a lesbian community, and and we all we all are intermingled.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_03: We we all had to pull together to get through all of the crises that our community has faced over the years.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_03: So even though we kept the name Heart of Leather, we've transitioned our thought process of what Heart of Leather means.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_03: And that's for us, leather is durable, leather is strong, leather is tough, and so is our community.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_03: And our history is the heart of the tough, tough parts of our community.
• 8:26
  Brett: Yeah.
• 8:26
  Brett: Well, it's a it's incredible to think about these things.
• 8:29
  Brett: And and going forward, you know, obviously you're helping to store these, but where do these bar tops go after this exhibition?
• 8:35
  Brett: I mean, where are they where are they held?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_05: They they they will go back into the current storage and everything's gonna stay there until we actually feel like we have the income coming into the foundation where we can at least have a lease space where we have space to not only store the items, but some area to work for cleaning, for restoration purposes, and people can come in and help work with that collection.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_05: We also need enough space where we can do at least, you know, a small exhibit that we can change out maybe once a quarter or once every couple of months.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_05: Ultimately, we have hope to have a brick and mortar that belongs to the community where we'll have all of that plus meeting space, education space, and the community can come in and we can have classes where they can learn about our history, they can learn about other things, and just let it be almost like a community center and hold, you know, some of the better events of the community there.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, that's that's the grand hope.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_05: That's where we're we're headed with this.
• 9:46
  Brett: Well, if anybody can do that, I believe you too can.
• 9:48
  Brett: I know you're both connected to so many organizations and so many different things, and and this whole idea, part of your lives have been getting these clubs to work together and collaborate and create that community.
• 10:00
  Brett: Because I can tell you, when I first came to Houston, it did feel a little bit disparate.
• 10:04
  Brett: It did feel like there was a leather community and then there was a lesbian community, and then there was this and that.
• 10:09
  Brett: I think we've evolved over time, you know.
• 10:11
  Brett: And it's interesting to watch us, you know.
• 10:13
  Brett: You're definitely one of those couples that have rallied that around.
• 10:16
  Brett: Yeah.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_05: And there still really is, but I think our our yeah, our our community, even though there there are those separate pods, I still believe our community has the ability to work together and uh do great things, absolutely great things.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_05: But uh yeah, that's that's that's to our sponsorship levels, moving forward.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_05: It's it's gonna take a lot to do what we need to do.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_05: Everybody everybody needs money, all aspects of our community do, especially when we're trying to help other people at the same time.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_05: And we don't we don't wanna lay any of that aside.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_05: But when somebody's got something that they can put into a project like this, because this will help future generations.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_05: Well, where can we find you?
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_05: Heart of Leather.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_05: What what are your heartofleather.org or on Facebook, Heart of Leather Foundation.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_03: And then we're also on Instagram, Heart of Leather Foundation.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 11:10
  Brett: Okay.
• 11:10
  Brett: Well, we will see you.
• 11:12
  Brett: I will definitely be there September 9th through the 12th, and I will plan on the 12th, 10 a.m., right?
• 11:16
  Brett: That's the gonna be the story time.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, that's a given.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you can also find out more information.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_03: We'll be posting a little more information on the website, and then also Match will have a link to it in just probably about a week.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_03: We have paperwork to fill out for them, by the way.
• 11:32
  Brett: Yeah, you've got a job.
• 11:33
  Brett: Yeah.
• 11:35
  Brett: All right.
• 11:36
  Brett: Well, thank you so much for doing this.
• 11:38
  Brett: I appreciate it.
• 11:40
  Brett: Okay.
• 11:40
  Brett: Well, thank you so much.
• 11:42
  Brett: Yes.
• 11:52
  Brett: Hi there, this is Brett Cullum, and Mildred's Umbrella is producing a new show to kick off their 25th season on September 3rd.
• 12:00
  Brett: It runs through the 19th at Spring Street Studio.
• 12:03
  Brett: Collective Rage by Jen Silverman follows five very different women, all named Betty.
• 12:10
  Brett: One is rich, one is lonely, one is charismatic, one is lovelorn, and one spends her time, well, working on her truck.
• 12:17
  Brett: So when one Betty decides to stage a play, their lives collide at the intersection of rage, love, and like theatre.
• 12:24
  Brett: Wildly funny, fiercely queer, and unapologetically theatrical.
• 12:29
  Brett: This play explores identity, desire, connection in unexpected ways.
• 12:34
  Brett: And here is the off-color full title, Collective Rage, a play in five beddies, in essence, a queer and occasionally hazardous exploration.
• 12:43
  Brett: Do you remember when you were in middle school and you read about Shackleton and how he explored the Antarctic?
• 12:48
  Brett: Imagine the Antarctic as a something that I can't say on the radio.
• 12:53
  Brett: And it's sort of like that.
• 12:54
  Brett: Okay.
• 12:55
  Brett: So with me today are director Rhett Martinez and actress Cindy Wang.
• 13:00
  Brett: So welcome, both of you.
• 13:02
  Brett: Thank you for having us.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, hello.
• 13:05
  Brett: I feel so ganged up on, but first two against one.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Get ready.
• 13:10
  Brett: And some angry Betty's energy in the room.
• 13:13
  Brett: But Mildred's Umbrella.
• 13:14
  Brett: Let's talk about that first.
• 13:15
  Brett: Tell me about the company.
• 13:16
  Brett: What is the vision of Mildred's Umbrella?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_04: So this is the 25th season.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_04: Jennifer Decker, our artistic director, had created this company with a few other people 25 years ago to represent women in the theater.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_04: And their mission is to center women in the space.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_04: And that usually means a women playwright, but not always.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_04: And it usually means mostly female, or in this case, an all-female cast, or at least a central female storyline.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_04: The whole idea is to just center women in every way possible.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_04: And that's just been the mission forever.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_04: The name Mildred's umbrella actually comes from a Gertrude Stein quote.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_04: You have to talk to Ms.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_04: Decker about that one.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_04: I forget the actual origin of it.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_04: It's a poetic reference to the struggles that women have had throughout, you know, history.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_04: And I guess it's it's like it's the year 2026, so back to 2020, 2001, excuse me.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_04: You know, things were a little different back in 2001.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_04: The Houston theater scene was quite different, as I recall.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_04: Back in 2001, there just weren't that many companies around.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_04: And now there are a lot more companies.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_04: Even now, 25 years later, there's a lot of great women out there working on the stage, a lot of great women directors and writers.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_04: But I still think we are the only one that censors women.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_04: That sounds kind of funny coming from a man, but they still have men roles in some of the plays.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_04: And me and Jen work very well together.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_04: But uh, it is it is definitely a women's company, and I'm just there to support the mission.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_04: So, how do you describe this play?
• 14:39
  Brett: Collective Rage by Jen Silverman.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_04: I think, I think Jen Silverman has said quite a few things.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_04: We read something in the in the rehearsal that put it in her words.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_04: I can look it up and I'll try to sort of summarize it as best I can.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_04: But it's about, it began with her feeling like she wasn't safe in certain spaces and that rage that women get when they walk down the street and they get catcalled and their voice gets minimized.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_04: And so she sort of took that and tried to find, I guess, the most concentrated industrial strength version of that.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_04: But the other thing the play is about is that it's universal.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_04: And in fact, one of the things we talked about in our dramaturgy, Jen Silverman, did an essay about this play and what it's about.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_04: And I specifically love that because I am not a woman and I am not gay, and yet I feel like this play is for me.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_04: And it's not only for me, of course, but I feel like I'm welcome to the party.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_04: That's really what it is, isn't it?
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_04: I'd love to hear what Cindy thinks, but I I think it's in my head, it's a party that we're all invited to.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_04: And it happens to be that the five people at this party are women, and it happens to be that the driving force of some of their narrative is queer-centered struggles, queer-centered identity.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_04: But like all great works of art, it is universal, and you don't need to be those things to get something from this, to actually glean something from the story.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_04: And that's what gay women have been forced to do forever by looking at stories like Death of a Salesman, which doesn't represent them.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_04: But yet they're expected to find the universal in that.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_04: However, when it comes time for a play that's all women cast and a woman playwright, suddenly somehow it's not for everyone.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_04: And this play really challenges that idea, and I think it does it brilliantly.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_04: It it breaks my heart and makes me laugh every single day.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_04: And I don't feel excluded at all.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_04: I feel very much included.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_04: Well, Cindy?
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: So speaking upon the collective rage, there is so much rage in being a woman.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like our bodies literally attack us every month.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: We like we have to have babies.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: If anyone's gonna have babies, we have to have babies.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: And something that kind of resonated me with me as well about what Brett was talking about was just this experience I actually kind of had recently and that I have regularly, which is often male workers will come to my house to work on my garden or on the AC unit or something in the house.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm from Chinatown.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: So if I look at them and I'm like, I could take them, it's fine.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: Every once in a while, if the guy looks real big and like I might not be able to overpower him, I do turn on a YouTube video in my office and tell them that my husband is upstairs working.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's the like reality of the world that we live in.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: And as a bisexual woman, it also is a world that we live in that sometimes when you like talk about that with males, it's really sexy.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's really cool.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: So, do you make out with girls?
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot, there's a lot of things to have rage about, and there's a lot of ways in this world that both as someone who presents or identifies as female or any type of queer that we have to make ourselves smaller and take up less space.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's what this show is about.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it it's true, it's not just about women, but it's about feeling like you don't deserve to take up space.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: No matter who you are, no matter how confident you are, no matter no matter how charismatic you are, no matter how straight or gay you are.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's feeling like you aren't, you don't have a right to that space for some reason because it's dominated by so many other things.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the way I see it is this show is about five very, very different people, but also they're the same person.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: And they are all coming to this journey both separately and together to accept themselves as they are, and that they are enough, even if they don't all get the outcomes that they want, they still come away from it and from this experience, which is really, really crazy and whimsical and nonsensical and graphic.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: And some of these characters are like, I'm here for it.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: And some of these characters are like, What's happening?
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: But at the end of it all, everyone reaches a certain place where it's like, if I was down with it, that's okay.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: If I wasn't down with it, that doesn't make me an addict.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm enough as I am, and I just need to speak my truth and be who I am.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: And as long as I check the honesty box on myself, then I have the power to do anything.
• 19:38
  Brett: Well, I was curious, um, Jen Silverman, would I know any of her other works?
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_04: The most famous thing that was probably recent was The Roommate, which was on Broadway.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_04: And uh that was starring Patty Lapone and Mia Farrow.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_04: I've reached the age, Mia Farrow.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, thank you.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_04: Strangely enough, those two women, of course, wonderful actresses, and I imagine it was a f fabulous show.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, they're a little older than the part is actually the parts are written in that play because I know this because I think is it stages that's doing that play this year in their season?
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_04: And they're gonna, I think they're going to get casted a little closer to the age of the two characters.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_04: They're supposed to have children.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_04: I think they're supposed to be in their 50s or something, and Patty Lapone and Ms.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_04: Farrow are certainly not in their 50s anymore.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_04: Who cares?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_04: I would love to see them.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_04: I'd watch them read the phone book.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_04: They would be wonderful either.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_04: But that is, pardon the pun, a bit of a straight play in that it is much more contemporary modern realism.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_04: I don't remember a single surrealist or absurdist or farcical element in that play, but it's brilliantly crafted.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_04: As opposed to another play of hers you might know, The Moors, which Mildred's Umbrella did years ago.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_04: And that is wacky, zany, over the top, big, theatrical.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_04: But it's always grounded in a reality.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_04: Jennifer Decker and I read a lot of plays.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_04: And you get to the point after you've read so many that you can really start to see plays that are even very good and have had good productions and good production histories.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_04: You can start to sometimes the second or third time see the seams a little bit where the connections are made.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_04: And I wouldn't say flaws, but a little bit of the like inner workings are kind of showing through when they shouldn't be.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_04: And what I I have not found that to be the case with Ms.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_04: Silverman ever.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_04: She can do no wrong in my book.
• 21:22
  Brett: Well, I think it's interesting.
• 21:23
  Brett: The is it the roommate?
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, the roommate.
• 21:27
  Brett: Yes.
• 21:27
  Brett: Yeah.
• 21:27
  Brett: Stages is doing it this year, but last season, the suburbia did it.
• 21:32
  Brett: Which is crazy.
• 21:33
  Brett: Yeah.
• 21:33
  Brett: They were beating them to the punch.
• 21:34
  Brett: So Jen Silverman everywhere.
• 21:36
  Brett: She is dominating our local scene right now.
• 21:39
  Brett: So why does this kind of feel new for Mildred's umbrella in a weird way?
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I I feel like Mildred's umbrella has always championed the outside the box.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_04: I want to when I was started coming to the theater in Houston and I didn't know everybody, I gravitated towards Mildred's because Jennifer Decker always chooses the most amazing material and it's Not material you're going to see anywhere else.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_04: I could say similarly that Jason at Catastrophic Theater picks material that you're not going to see anywhere else in Houston.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_04: But that is a different, more of an avant-garde, experimental theater that Catastrophic does brilliantly and nobody else is doing it, what they do, the way they do it.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_04: And I really think despite even if Jennifer hadn't made it her mission to have a theater company that was women-centered, if she just had a theater company that was less specific than that in its mission statement, she would still have always picked plays that, in my humble opinion, were under the radar.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_04: They were not off Broadway last season with a movie star in them.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_04: So we have to do them this year now in the regional theaters.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_04: Nothing wrong with those plays, but you're not going to find these for sale at Barnes and Noble.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_04: It's not going to happen.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_04: So, but they're there and they are brilliant and they are known within the theater world, but they're not as well known.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_04: Their names don't ring out as much.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_04: And yet they resonate and stay with you forever.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_04: And she's just always had the most uncanny ability to find those material.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_04: So I don't know that this particular script feels very different than the Mildred's experience.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_04: This season might be the first season ever that Mildred's has had exclusively women actors on the stage.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_04: There will be no male actors on the stage at Mildred's this season.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_04: Exclusively women playwrights.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_04: There's only two women.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_04: And in both plays, Anthropology and Collective Rage, center queer characters.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_04: And that wasn't necessarily what we set out to do.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_04: It just sort of happened.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_04: And yet it's somehow perfect.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_04: So in that way, I guess it is new for Mildred's.
• 23:41
  Brett: Yeah, no, definitely.
• 23:42
  Brett: There is this sense of I went for a long time trying to get Jennifer onto queer voices, and she kept telling me, well, there's nothing really queer about this play that I've chosen.
• 23:51
  Brett: And I'm I'm like, oh, okay.
• 23:53
  Brett: And then finally she came to me and was like, this season I'm gonna be talking to you.
• 23:57
  Brett: And I was like, okay.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: You can make anything queer, just saying anything can be made queer.
• 24:05
  Brett: Come on, it's theater.
• 24:06
  Brett: It's already there.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_04: Brent, in the last conversation we had, I think we talked a little bit about growing up and and maybe the kids today, these kids today in their schools have the gay straight alliance.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_04: But in our day, it was just called drama club.
• 24:23
  Brett: Yes, it was.
• 24:25
  Brett: And it wasn't just for the queer kids, it was for anybody that just didn't fit.
• 24:29
  Brett: Exactly.
• 24:30
  Brett: So it was back to the vetting.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: Neurospicy and queer.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_04: Neurospicy, I love it.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_04: And allies.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, that's where allies were born.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_04: That's where my ally to the community was born.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_04: It was just, you know, being around people from the age of 14.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_04: And by the time I was a little bit older, I was like, I don't even understand what we're talking about.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_04: What does it matter?
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_04: But not everybody's exposed to that.
• 24:48
  Brett: No, they're not.
• 24:49
  Brett: But Cindy, how did you end up in this mix?
• 24:51
  Brett: I know this is your first production with Mildred's?
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: With Mildred's, yes.
• 24:55
  Brett: What have you been doing since before?
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I recently just finished directing Phenomenomaly at Meow Wolf.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's been very interesting because there's been an overlap with my time here at Mildred's.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: And like Phenomenomaly is about a cosmic animal migration.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's like really crazy, kind of sleep no more, but family friendly, where there's different scenes unfolding and different rooms, and there's like a lot of whimsies, and the costumes are larger than life.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: And they are they were actually, I think, originally created by the costume for Lady Gaga's last tour.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: But it it's interesting coming in from that to this because it's kind of the same thing.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: Except like instead of a like cosmic animal migration, it's the journey of a so it it's been interesting, especially like sitting in a director's seat for another show and like milling out like all of these resources to like force people to get up on their feet and like drop all conventions that like immediately I now have to test those skills on myself.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and previous to that, um, I'm an actor, I'm a director, I've done some production.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: I originally born and raised here in Houston, Chinatown, went to college in Minnesota, did some time abroad, where studied abroad and worked in Ireland and England for a while.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then I decided all of it was too white, too white, too many white people, too many white people specifically calling me Ching Chong.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, man, I gotta go.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I ended up going to Washington, DC, finish my degree there, and did some did some like gay stuff there, both in my personal life and in my career.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: And some of the material that we did got into some like really cool stuff in my like earl 20s, early 20s.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then I came back to Houston.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: I actually heard about Mildred's umbrella theater pretty quickly as soon as I came back to Houston.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I I heard of it as the theater company that produced all female written plays and had was like female-centered, and I've always been interested in actually since 2019, since I came back to Houston, I've auditioned almost every year.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I am like really, really psyched to get into this specific show this year because, like I said, my entire journey up to this point, and then coming from the stuff that I'm doing at Meowwolf, it just kind of feels like his name.
• 27:38
  Brett: Yeah.
• 27:39
  Brett: No, absolutely.
• 27:40
  Brett: Well, I was gonna ask you, you know, obviously you identify as part of the community.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 27:44
  Brett: Yeah, you recognize yourself as okay.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I mainly say bisexual.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: I have not taken the time to sit down and like look at every possible thing I could label myself as.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: I am attracted to both men and women, but I'm also attracted to non-binary people.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm also attracted to trans men and women.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess I'm attracted to most people, but I know that there's certain like there's a difference between being like yummy, and there's a difference between being like like a a lot of different categories, and so I'm queer.
• 28:25
  Brett: Yeah, no, it's the easiest way to do it.
• 28:26
  Brett: I would suggest maybe pan because you're kind of breaking the binary a little bit on all of this.
• 28:32
  Brett: But yes, no, for convenience, I just throw queer out there.
• 28:36
  Brett: But Rhythmartinez, how do you identify?
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm a heterosexual, cisgender, boring guy.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_04: But Cindy inspired me a couple of different ways.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_04: First of all, I want to hear more later about the meow wolf thing because I didn't know that.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_04: I was today years old when I learned about that.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_04: I think you might have mentioned something, but I didn't quite know exactly what that sounds amazing.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_04: But isn't it interesting that Cindy, who is absolutely in the community, still within the community, is a little bit, I don't know what the word struggling is correct, like to find an I a label, not necessarily an identity.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to speak for you, Cindy, but but what I heard was Well, my main thing in therapy is that I I I um uh need to discover what my true identity is.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: I've been in identity crisis all the time.
• 29:23
  Brett: And which acting is perfect for that.
• 29:26
  Brett: Right?
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_04: And when you Brett, when you asked what the play is about, I really think that's one of, if not the key thing it's about.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_04: It is about that identity.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_04: And Jen Silverman, who is a queer woman, has a little bit of tongue-in-cheek fun poking at the liberal community, the inclusive community, us who proudly wave our ally flag, have a big gay pride flag on the front of my house, even though nobody in this house is gay, because we want to support the community.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_04: There's this, there's this constant back and forth within the community about who counts and how do you count and what's your label and where specifically do you fall.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_04: And I had always thought that the word queer came from a kind of inclusivity to sort of include the whole group.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_04: And then from there, maybe people can look at those, you know, sub-categories.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_04: And but isn't it amazing, Cindy, that you're kind of struggling or or dealing, maybe dealing with is the right way.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_04: Some of the things Jen Silverman is talking about in this play.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, Sammy's character wants to be an ally and wants to get the verbs right and wants to get the nouns right and struggles with it.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_04: And at the same time, there's a little bit of like, isn't it more important that your heart is in the right place?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_04: And get that from the character.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_04: And so maybe we need to be a little kinder and gentler to ourselves on this side, not just looking to the right and the extreme conservatives who are against all of us, but within our community, let's be a little kinder to each other.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_04: Let's have a little more chill.
• 30:55
  Brett: Well, it's an interesting debate that we've had for a long time.
• 30:58
  Brett: And particularly with this show, Queer Voices.
• 31:00
  Brett: Some people see queer as a pejorative term.
• 31:03
  Brett: It certainly was used as an insult decades ago.
• 31:06
  Brett: And but it has become sort of that umbrella term where it's a shorthand for I'm part of this community and I'm avoiding that need to label and subdivide even more.
• 31:17
  Brett: You know, I can just say, hey, I'm I am this, I'm part of this community.
• 31:21
  Brett: Yes, it is enough.
• 31:22
  Brett: Exactly.
• 31:22
  Brett: It'd be enough.
• 31:23
  Brett: And yet I will reveal that I did see Rhett Martinez on social media first day RuPaul movie Stop That Thane with his wife.
• 31:32
  Brett: So I have so many questions about the extent of your allyship.
• 31:36
  Brett: But yes.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_04: I feel comfortable enough, and I am enough.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_04: I am enough that I I don't even uh I don't I feel like I don't have to worry about that.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_04: I'm just a huge fan of drag queens.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_04: I'm a huge fan of RuPaul's drag race, and that movie's just hilarious.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_04: And uh you don't have to be gay to like it.
• 31:54
  Brett: All right.
• 31:55
  Brett: Well, Mildred's Umbrella, the new show by Jen Silverman, Collective Rage, and a very long subtitle that I will not read again, but that's a play either.
• 32:05
  Brett: No, you don't, but it's gonna be at the Spring Street Studio running September 3rd through the 19th.
• 32:11
  Brett: Tickets are available at the Mildred's Umbrella website.
• 32:13
  Brett: Is that the primary upstairs?
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, that's right.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_04: Upstairs, Spring Street, upstairs in the black box, not downstairs in the fourth wall space.
• 32:19
  Brett: Okay, that's a good to know.
• 32:20
  Brett: Go up the Spring.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_04: Upstairs studio 233 Upstairs at Spring Street.
• 32:24
  Brett: Yes.
• 32:24
  Brett: And there's usually signs, usually people point to the right.
• 32:28
  Brett: And the cool thing, the cool thing is Spring Street, when you go to the second floor, you get to see all the art.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 32:34
  Brett: It's like a bonus.
• 32:36
  Brett: You get collective rage and some art.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 32:39
  Brett: Art on top of art.
• 32:40
  Brett: So thank you both for joining me.
• 32:42
  Brett: It's so much fun.
• 32:43
  Brett: I can't wait to see it.
• 32:44
  Brett: 25th anniversary season for Mildred's Umbrella, and finally, really playing with those identities for sure.
• 32:51
  Brett: Yes, indeed.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you so much for having us.
• 33:04
  Brett: Hi there, this is Brett Cullum, and welcome to the news rap segment of We're Voices.
• 33:09
  Brett: Today I'm joined by author R.
• 33:11
  Brett: Lee Ingalls, who is on the show quite a bit.
• 33:14
  Brett: And well, I I know him pretty well since he's my husband.
• 33:17
  Brett: So good to have you back on board for our new segment.
• 33:20
  Lee: Thank you for inviting me.
• 33:21
  Lee: Yeah, we have a lot going on in our community.
• 33:23
  Lee: And so, yeah, it's good to talk about those things.
• 33:25
  Brett: Yeah, the first thing that I wanted to talk about is there is a new shelter.
• 33:30
  Brett: It is called Asia's House.
• 33:32
  Brett: It is Houston's first LGBTQ affirming emergency shelter for unhoused and runaway youth specifically aged 15 to 17.
• 33:41
  Brett: They are going for a very specific demographic here.
• 33:45
  Brett: The opening date is scheduled to open on September 1st, and it's a partnership with the Montrose Grace Place and the Montrose Center.
• 33:53
  Brett: Six-bedroom temporary emergency shelter.
• 33:56
  Brett: It's named after Asia Jeanette Foster, who was a big activist and was also murdered.
• 34:02
  Brett: The facility uh fills a critical local gap, provides a safe affirming overnight space for older teenagers.
• 34:08
  Lee: Yeah, yeah.
• 34:09
  Lee: And I I was a little bit surprised by that.
• 34:11
  Lee: As you know, in our discussions about this, I thought that something like this already existed.
• 34:15
  Lee: But during my research, I found that, yeah, no, apparently it wasn't.
• 34:19
  Lee: So this kind of formalizes that and adds another thing to care for our youth that that find themselves, for whatever reason, homeless.
• 34:27
  Lee: So I'm glad to see it.
• 34:28
  Brett: Well, and it's interesting that a large part of the homeless population is actually members of our community, members of the LGBTQIA plus community.
• 34:37
  Brett: I think that's disturbing that that is still the case after all these years.
• 34:41
  Lee: I think that today, in particular, it is it is worse than it's been in in more recent years.
• 34:46
  Lee: And I think we all know the reasons why.
• 34:48
  Lee: So sad to see that we are still there, but glad to see that we are once again stepping up and doing something about it.
• 34:54
  Brett: Yeah.
• 34:55
  Brett: ASA's house has specific rules and intake processes, and it's you have to be 15 to 17 years old.
• 35:01
  Brett: It is open to teens experiencing housing instability in Harris, Fort Bend, and Montgomery counties.
• 35:06
  Brett: It is open to all sexualities and genders identities, though specifically they are trying to concentrate on the LGBTQ plus affirming.
• 35:15
  Brett: They don't need a parent or guardian to sign them in.
• 35:18
  Brett: I mean, that's one of the things, the big things there.
• 35:20
  Brett: Uh it's voluntary entry.
• 35:22
  Brett: They have to enter it completely voluntarily.
• 35:26
  Brett: Nobody makes them go.
• 35:28
  Brett: And then they do a whole bunch of different uh referral channels to get the residents for it.
• 35:34
  Brett: There's a street outreach, school partnerships, 24-hour hotline.
• 35:38
  Brett: Now, one of the things that I noticed is that they do notify the guardians within 72 hours of a teen entering the facility, they have to.
• 35:46
  Brett: However, they were saying that the use safety is going to dictate whether a return to home is pursued.
• 35:52
  Lee: So which is a good idea.
• 35:54
  Lee: You know, they are where they are for reasons they don't feel like they could go home.
• 35:58
  Lee: So the fact that they're able to stay there even after they've notified their guardians is good.
• 36:02
  Lee: I think it's good.
• 36:03
  Lee: And it makes will it'll make them feel safe.
• 36:05
  Brett: Well, and the length of stay that they're looking for is about 21 days, and then they're going to try to get them into safe, stable long-term housing, which I think the moderate center, I I, if I remember correctly, has a rapid housing project for teens and people doing that.
• 36:17
  Brett: It's completely confidential, of course.
• 36:19
  Brett: And they have not given us the address because they don't want that to be out there.
• 36:23
  Brett: They want to protect the privacy and the safety that's a minor same there, which I think I totally understand that.
• 36:27
  Brett: Yeah, anytime you have a teen program, you really do have to kind of put these things in force for that.
• 36:31
  Brett: So a little bit about Asia Janae Foster.
• 36:34
  Brett: She was a 22-year-old black transgender woman and a prominent member of our community.
• 36:40
  Brett: And she was tragically murdered in November 2020.
• 36:43
  Brett: And she was a regular at the Montrose Grace Place community meetings and a big advocate for youth.
• 36:48
  Brett: A lot of people are saying that this was something that Asia really described as sort of shelter, was her her goal before she passed.
• 36:57
  Brett: So it's hard to believe somebody at 22.
• 37:00
  Brett: Yes.
• 37:00
  Brett: Yeah, that's very sad.
• 37:02
  Brett: So it is dedicated in her name and honors her vision of kind of taking care of vulnerable young people.
• 37:08
  Brett: One of the things that I think is interesting too is we talked about that this was a partnership between Montrose Grace Place and the Montrose Center.
• 37:15
  Brett: And I wanted to get an idea a little bit about Montrose Grace Place and something that we have kind of been aware of because we're in the neighborhood.
• 37:21
  Lee: Right, right.
• 37:22
  Lee: We've seen the gatherings because we go to dinner every Wednesday night with a group of friends, and we drive by this facility and we see the the youth gathering there.
• 37:30
  Lee: So we weren't unaware that this was happening.
• 37:32
  Lee: We just didn't know why or who they were.
• 37:34
  Lee: So this kind of answers that question.
• 37:36
  Brett: Yeah, they're running it out of the Living Mosaic Church on WA.
• 37:40
  Brett: And Sancho's Grace Place was formed back in 2010.
• 37:45
  Brett: And they've been operating out of this church, even though the church has kind of gone through a couple of different iterations and names.
• 37:50
  Brett: And most recently, Living Mosaic, and they are really doing all of these programs.
• 37:54
  Brett: They've got the youth night drop-in center every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday night at six.
• 38:00
  Lee: And what we see.
• 38:00
  Lee: Right.
• 38:01
  Brett: Yeah.
• 38:01
  Brett: And they open them up to youths age 13 to 24.
• 38:05
  Brett: So a little bit broader than just uh what Asia's house is a targeting.
• 38:09
  Brett: But you get a hot meal, cert family style.
• 38:11
  Brett: They have some mentorships, some skills building lessons, and kind of access to support.
• 38:16
  Brett: And they also have a program called Tracy's Closet where youth can shop for free for essential housing, clothing, shoes, toiletries, hygiene items, snacks, all that kind of stuff.
• 38:27
  Brett: And then, of course, they do have staff that can help with case management and legal aid and all of that.
• 38:32
  Brett: They do give people access to healthcare partnerships as well.
• 38:35
  Brett: And they have a specific fund called Asia's Fund that provides assistance and gender-affirming care specifically for transgender youth.
• 38:43
  Brett: So a lot of stuff going on there at Grace Place.
• 38:46
  Lee: Yeah.
• 38:47
  Lee: Yeah.
• 38:47
  Lee: And it's sad that we need that, but I'm so glad to see that it's there and available because at what time these programs were not available.
• 38:53
  Lee: So yes, I'm glad we're supporting them better.
• 38:56
  Brett: Well, and it kind of is a writer to you and me.
• 38:58
  Brett: I know that we are in the middle of trying to downsize some of our stuff.
• 39:02
  Brett: Yes.
• 39:03
  Brett: Trying to clean out our closets.
• 39:04
  Brett: And we had a lot of clothes that ironically.
• 39:07
  Brett: Oh my goodness.
• 39:08
  Brett: Would probably be good for this program.
• 39:11
  Lee: So we're really considering donating for that.
• 39:13
  Lee: Yeah, I keep going through mine and and it's my closet that's still full.
• 39:16
  Lee: So yeah.
• 39:17
  Lee: No, we definitely need to go through them and donate a bunch of our stuff.
• 39:21
  Brett: Well, and if you need to do that as well, they're located at 2515 Wad Drive.
• 39:26
  Brett: They accept donations Mondays and Thursdays from 4 to 6.
• 39:30
  Brett: They also do the third Saturday of every month from 10 a.m.
• 39:33
  Brett: to 12 p.m.
• 39:34
  Brett: So I guess 10 a.m.
• 39:35
  Brett: until uh so two-hour windows there to drop stuff off.
• 39:40
  Brett: And I'm guessing they're looking for clothes, hygiene items, just different things that youth could use and people on the streets.
• 39:47
  Lee: And two things that we find that in anywhere that we have donated in the past, they don't like to take used socks or used underwear for sure.
• 39:54
  Lee: So if you do feel compelled to give those items, which there are needed, they do have to be new.
• 39:59
  Brett: Yeah, but you can you can bring them in packaged.
• 40:02
  Brett: Yeah.
• 40:02
  Brett: Like go to somewhere and just get like a package of them and donate that.
• 40:06
  Brett: And that works perfectly well.
• 40:07
  Brett: Uh, but of course, we also donate to Out of the Closet sometimes, which supports the AIDS Foundation in Houston or Allies in Hope, as it is now called.
• 40:15
  Brett: And of course, there's always Tony's Place as well, which also has some uh resources for homeless LGBTQ uh youth.
• 40:22
  Brett: Uh and they accept donations, so clothes and books, and uh, we've definitely donated a lot of stuff in the past to them for that as well.
• 40:30
  Brett: So there's a lot of different places to do.
• 40:31
  Brett: And I think that that's one of the strategies that you and I, as a couple, have is that we donate to things within the community.
• 40:37
  Brett: Yes, we do.
• 40:38
  Brett: There's so much that you can do for the community.
• 40:40
  Lee: Yeah, we're very aware of who we're giving our things to and making sure that they're going to go to people that actually need them.
• 40:46
  Lee: Just for resell, um, we've never given them on consignment where we get anything back, nor do we want anything back.
• 40:51
  Lee: We we want to make sure that they go to people that actually need them.
• 40:54
  Lee: Yeah.
• 40:54
  Lee: So these are definitely some worthy causes.
• 40:56
  Brett: Yeah.
• 40:57
  Brett: All of them.
• 40:57
  Brett: Well, that's uh our donations of clothes.
• 40:59
  Brett: I mean, of course, who wants our antiques?
• 41:01
  Lee: They have taken them.
• 41:02
  Lee: They've taken Toshkies.
• 41:03
  Lee: Yeah, we donate a lot of that stuff.
• 41:05
  Brett: Oh my gosh, this is I didn't know that.
• 41:07
  Brett: Okay.
• 41:07
  Brett: All right.
• 41:08
  Brett: So for out of the closet, I think.
• 41:10
  Brett: Yes.
• 41:10
  Brett: Yes.
• 41:10
  Brett: Yeah, yeah.
• 41:11
  Brett: For sure.
• 41:11
  Brett: Out of the closet.
• 41:12
  Brett: Okay.
• 41:12
  Brett: I was like trying to picture like Grace Face taking like an almoir and like No, no, no.
• 41:17
  Brett: Okay.
• 41:17
  Lee: So you could tell he doesn't know when something's missing from the shelf.
• 41:20
  Brett: I don't.
• 41:21
  Brett: All right.
• 41:21
  Brett: The next thing was kind of like what you uh were talking about a little bit.
• 41:25
  Lee: Yeah, yeah.
• 41:26
  Lee: So we're totally at a threshold in our society once again, uh, where it appears that the fundamental structuring of the LGBTQ civil rights in America is changing or seems to be changing.
• 41:39
  Lee: What we're seeing is the changes in healthcare, federal employment, education, military service, passport, and certainly transgender athletes and civil rights enforcement.
• 41:47
  Lee: Uh, Reuters recently characterized the Supreme Court's direction as increasingly difficult for transgender rights plaintiffs, with one legal scholar saying that the court uh has shifted directions on LGBTQ rights in a broader way.
• 42:03
  Lee: So, yeah, the question then becomes uh you know, what does this mean in 2026?
• 42:07
  Lee: What, you know, how are our rights being challenged?
• 42:11
  Brett: It's interesting then, particularly within I I can't believe I'm saying this, but the gay Republican politics, the Log Cabin Republicans are having a big split.
• 42:19
  Lee: They have taken so there's a thing that we've talked about before where they're kind of separating our community, and this is one area that we're seeing.
• 42:26
  Lee: So the log cabin Republicans have formally moved away from identifying themselves as an LGBT organization and are emphasizing representation of the gay and lesbian conservatives, explicitly distancing the organization from transgender policy advocacy.
• 42:44
  Lee: In fact, Log Cabin Republican, their official announcement came from their president, Ross Hemminger.
• 42:52
  Lee: He stated that the group will no longer champion transgender issues, aligning closer with the wider GOP's platform, which I find that very, very interesting and sad at the same time.
• 43:03
  Lee: You know, we are stronger as our individual.
• 43:06
  Lee: So I'm not a proponent for separating ourselves in any way uh and never have.
• 43:12
  Lee: The uh reasons that they're saying for the the shift in there is, you know, political alignment.
• 43:16
  Lee: They want to make sure that they align more with the Republican priorities, protecting their core issues, one of those being uh marriage equality and then activist uh friction.
• 43:26
  Lee: They want to uh eliminate some of that friction.
• 43:28
  Lee: But the one of the curious parts of that is their membership.
• 43:32
  Lee: Um, they have still stated that they are all-inclusive.
• 43:36
  Lee: So even though they they're not going to represent the transgender uh community and issues, they are allowing transgender conservatives to become members, and they've left it up to the local chapters to decide how they are going to welcome those allies into their organization if they choose to.
• 43:54
  Brett: And I think that's just really weird.
• 43:56
  Brett: It's like, yeah, you can come and join our group, but we're not going to fight for your rights in the Slightest.
• 44:00
  Brett: Yeah.
• 44:00
  Brett: And we're going to align with our Republican brethren to go against the transgender community.
• 44:07
  Brett: That makes no sense to me at all.
• 44:08
  Lee: It doesn't mean in fact it's just a sad statement all around.
• 44:12
  Lee: I can't think of anything good to come of it.
• 44:14
  Brett: Yeah, no, it makes no sense to to exclude this part of our community that's been such a vital and an essential part of our community for so long from the very beginning.
• 44:23
  Brett: And I just kind of look at it sideways and go, this doesn't make any sense to me.
• 44:27
  Brett: No, no.
• 44:28
  Brett: So it and but to be honest, the log cabin Republicans never made a ton of sense to me.
• 44:33
  Brett: I understand that people are welcome to their own political beliefs and systems and stuff like that.
• 44:38
  Brett: But once the Republican Party actually explicitly stated in their party platform they were against gay marriage and that they are looking to dissolve it permanently.
• 44:48
  Brett: I just don't see anything that I want to do to support that.
• 44:52
  Lee: Yeah, no, I can't either.
• 44:54
  Lee: And uh we point this out only as a as a reference point and still to illustrate another change in a society that I don't see it as positive at all.
• 45:03
  Brett: No, and then the their actions against the transgender community have been reprehensible.
• 45:08
  Brett: So I mean, just this whole idea of uh excluding them or doing anything like that, I just I really don't want any part of it.
• 45:14
  Brett: So I am even further from wanting to acknowledge or join that organization.
• 45:19
  Brett: There's just no way.
• 45:20
  Brett: You know, good luck.
• 45:21
  Brett: Godspeed.
• 45:23
  Brett: Well, uh, one of the things that happened here locally recently is that University of Houston is making some queer courses not part of their core curriculum.
• 45:33
  Brett: And this includes queer courses, women's studies, some multicultural things.
• 45:38
  Brett: They have actually dropped from 241 approved core courses to 144.
• 45:44
  Brett: So they've eliminated roughly almost 100.
• 45:47
  Brett: Yeah, 100.
• 45:48
  Brett: Like 40% of the core curriculum.
• 45:51
  Brett: And they are focusing on things like LGBT studies, women's studies, climate change, a couple of other areas.
• 45:58
  Brett: And it just seems really, really interesting.
• 46:00
  Brett: If you want to talk about some specific classes that got dropped out of the core curriculum, introduction to LGBT studies, introduction to women's studies, black liberation theology, and introduction to global climate change.
• 46:13
  Lee: And those are just four.
• 46:14
  Brett: Yeah.
• 46:15
  Lee: Oh, there's a lot of.
• 46:16
  Lee: Yeah, there are.
• 46:17
  Lee: Yeah.
• 46:17
  Lee: And I actually reviewed the list to see what was on there.
• 46:19
  Lee: And it, you know, no real surprises there.
• 46:22
  Lee: But the well, I guess it kind of surprises are some of the studies related to some of those areas are still there and are part of their core curriculum, but they did completely strip off the LGBT courses where they're none of those are part of the core curriculum anymore.
• 46:38
  Lee: So that it's sad.
• 46:40
  Lee: Um, we're still being targeted.
• 46:41
  Lee: I'm not surprised.
• 46:42
  Brett: Well, they're just invalidating those courses.
• 46:44
  Brett: They're saying they're not academically vital.
• 46:46
  Brett: You can still take classes in these areas, but they're no longer going to count towards your degree or as part of your core studies.
• 46:52
  Brett: And the reason that they are doing this is they have to look at Texas Senate Bill 37, which was passed in 2025.
• 47:00
  Brett: Now, what SB 37 does is it requires Texas public universities to periodically review their core curricula and emphasize courses that are considered foundational and necessary for workforce preparation and civic education.
• 47:13
  Brett: So they are stating that they are just complying with that law and restructuring their core curriculum.
• 47:20
  Brett: But it's really hard to ignore what they're saying here.
• 47:23
  Lee: Yeah, no kidding.
• 47:25
  Lee: Yeah, some of that just doesn't make sense.
• 47:27
  Lee: I would really like to hear the argument for why they took some of them out of their core curriculum based on that statement.
• 47:33
  Brett: Yeah.
• 47:33
  Brett: Well, it's a it's it's it's a very vague statement.
• 47:36
  Brett: And I think that most of the time when you look at state legislation, it is very, I think almost intentionally vague.
• 47:43
  Brett: It's it's very weird.
• 47:44
  Brett: But Texas Republicans, I mean, it's no secret, they have been targeting university courses dealing with race, gender, sexuality, and DEI, arguing that they represent an ideological indoctrination rather than an appropriate education, which I just again, one of those things that you do look at and you just go, I know, at least you're scratching your head.
• 48:03
  Brett: What?
• 48:04
  Brett: Yeah, yeah.
• 48:05
  Brett: It's just a message that the scholarship is somehow less legitimate, that these studies aren't as impactful and that they're not as valid.
• 48:14
  Brett: So it it really bothers me in the sense of academic freedom.
• 48:17
  Brett: I I really want that to be there.
• 48:19
  Brett: I want this freedom of academia.
• 48:22
  Brett: I I think that that bothers me.
• 48:23
  Lee: Yeah, and you should want your students to have as broad an education as possible when they leave your institution.
• 48:29
  Lee: And this kind of limits what they're uh you know, potentially uh what they're going to be exposed to.
• 48:34
  Lee: And I that again, that leaves me scratching my head and thinking, what?
• 48:39
  Brett: Yeah.
• 48:39
  Brett: Well, they're avoiding controversial subjects.
• 48:41
  Brett: I mean, that's that's the big thing.
• 48:42
  Brett: Is that they are looking at things that are political wedge issues, like the transgender community, the gay community, the queer community, the lesbian community.
• 48:50
  Brett: I mean, all of that.
• 48:51
  Brett: It just again kind of goes to the who's in control here.
• 48:55
  Brett: It doesn't mean all of this stuff is eliminated.
• 48:58
  Brett: No.
• 48:58
  Brett: It means that they can offer it as an elective, but it's not gonna count towards your core general education requirements.
• 49:05
  Brett: So you're basically taking this for no.
• 49:07
  Brett: Yeah.
• 49:08
  Brett: It's not contributing to anything really.
• 49:10
  Brett: It's just an elective, it's just an extra thing.
• 49:13
  Brett: So it really changes what you can study formally, I think is what it is.
• 49:18
  Brett: So it's pretty significant to see this happen, but it just uh it bothers me in that sense.
• 49:24
  Brett: So and and one of the things that's interesting, I saw that Avery Bellew, the CEO of the Montour Center, she posted a Houston Chronicle article recently that says that more than two million Texas adults now identify as LGBTQ.
• 49:40
  Brett: That puts us uh just behind California as the most populated state.
• 49:45
  Brett: Wow.
• 49:46
  Brett: This is all from an human rights campaign.
• 49:48
  Brett: They have done the report and the study, and they found that about 12.54% of Texas identify as LGBTQ plus.
• 49:58
  Brett: So that means that we have one of the largest LGBTQ plus populations in the country.
• 50:02
  Lee: Interesting because we've always been told, and you know, over my lifetime, that about 10% of the population uh identifies in our community.
• 50:10
  Lee: Um so that that's a little higher than what has been thought of in the past.
• 50:15
  Brett: I had this same exact thought immediately.
• 50:17
  Brett: And their numbers break down to 3% identify as lesbian or gay, 7% identify as bisexual, and 2% identify as transgender or gender expansive.
• 50:27
  Brett: That stays in line with what you're thinking of as far as Gallup polls.
• 50:31
  Brett: But this is human rights campaign.
• 50:33
  Brett: They're looking at a sample of about 2.4 million responses, and they're looking at some of the Census Bureau's survey that was taken 2021 to 2024.
• 50:42
  Brett: Uh, you'll notice before a certain administration took over and they stopped collecting this kind of data.
• 50:48
  Brett: But there you are.
• 50:49
  Brett: I mean, it it looks like there's a larger percentage of Texans that are actually identifying with us.
• 50:55
  Brett: So it's interesting that that is the case.
• 50:58
  Brett: Of course, my response to her was, you know, well, that makes a lot of sense because cowboys were always secretly pun of each other.
• 51:04
  Brett: Doesn't surprise me that this uh Texas is a little bit more Right.
• 51:08
  Lee: Another thing you won't see in your studies.
• 51:09
  Lee: Yes.
• 51:10
  Lee: No one's gonna study this.
• 51:12
  Lee: If they find that to be true, it will not be uh written about.
• 51:15
  Brett: Well, and you were talking about you were talking about the the 10%.
• 51:18
  unknown: Yes.
• 51:19
  Brett: Okay, so that is from the Gallup poll.
• 51:22
  Brett: Okay, and the Gallup poll has been going on for many, many years.
• 51:25
  Brett: And we have a Gallup poll that uh was released recently in February of 2026.
• 51:29
  Brett: It's from data that they did in 2025.
• 51:32
  Brett: And here's what was wild, and this is straight from the Gallup poll.
• 51:36
  Brett: In the age group of 18 to 29, 23 percent of that demographic identifies as part of the queer community.
• 51:44
  Brett: That is wild.
• 51:45
  Brett: Yeah, that is 23%.
• 51:47
  Brett: Now, 30 to 49, ages 30 to 49, was about 10%.
• 51:53
  Brett: Yeah, I guess they said 50 to 64 was only three, and then older, 65 and up, 2.3 percent, which mathematically adds up to with all adults, about 9%, 9 or 10%.
• 52:07
  Brett: Yeah.
• 52:08
  Brett: So now again, they identified bisexuality as the largest component.
• 52:13
  Brett: 5.3% of all US adults identify as bisexual in some way.
• 52:18
  Brett: Only 1.6% identify as gay, 1.4 identify as lesbian, 1.1% identify as transgender.
• 52:26
  Brett: So and then now we have more of an array of identities.
• 52:29
  Brett: So it's harder and harder to pinpoint this down, right?
• 52:32
  Lee: Yeah, no, and I I totally get that, and I agree.
• 52:35
  Lee: And yes, the numbers come out about what they've been saying all these years.
• 52:38
  Lee: 10% is the the right number, but now they're saying, you know, possibly as much as 12%.
• 52:43
  Lee: Yeah.
• 52:44
  Lee: So that doesn't surprise me either.
• 52:45
  Lee: I think there are a lot of people that were kind of firmly hidden behind the door that are maybe now more comfortable coming out, and certainly with all the exposure that we have.
• 52:53
  Brett: Well, I can tell you why the numbers are a little bit different.
• 52:55
  Brett: The Gallup poll is based on phone surveys.
• 52:59
  Brett: The HRC study and the census was done online.
• 53:03
  Brett: Uh-huh.
• 53:04
  Brett: So people may have been more open to saying something online that they wouldn't say on a telephone call.
• 53:10
  Brett: Right.
• 53:10
  Brett: So I think that that might explain some of that.
• 53:12
  Brett: But it means that we have anywhere from 10 to 12% of the entire population is identified with the um queer community.
• 53:20
  Brett: And that doesn't include allies or anything like that.
• 53:22
  Lee: That then causes me to wonder that low number for the over 65 group, is that in part because older people have more difficulty with technology than younger people do?
• 53:33
  Lee: This is true.
• 53:34
  Lee: And I agree with you.
• 53:35
  Lee: So that number might actually be higher.
• 53:36
  Brett: It it might, but I think in both polls it came up to about that where there was the lowest.
• 53:41
  Brett: But I think that they're just more reticent to say.
• 53:44
  Brett: Because I think if you're of a certain generation, you're not as forthcoming with this kind of information.
• 53:50
  Brett: Never I had to come out.
• 53:52
  Brett: I I was never comfortable with it until I did that.
• 53:54
  Brett: So, you know.
• 53:55
  Brett: Life gets good when you come out.
• 53:57
  Brett: Yes.
• 53:58
  Brett: And there's a lot of other factors socially that could explain some of that as we look at it.
• 54:03
  Brett: But uh, according to this, really, one in four Americas under 30 could be LGBTQ plus or members of the queer community.
• 54:12
  Brett: So that is wild to me.
• 54:14
  Brett: It means that we are just getting queerer and queerer as we go down the thing.
• 54:18
  Brett: And and we look at that as college educated people, which now they're not gonna be able to take the classes.
• 54:23
  Brett: Well, they can, they just get no credit for it.
• 54:24
  Brett: Yes.
• 54:25
  Brett: But they do have a place to go.
• 54:27
  Brett: True.
• 54:27
  Brett: With uh Hazia's house.
• 54:28
  Brett: So there you are.
• 54:29
  Brett: Uh and they probably will not join the log cabin Republicans because they're fighting against trans rights.
• 54:35
  Brett: So there you are.
• 54:36
  Brett: Yes.
• 54:37
  Brett: Well, I wanted to say thank you to our guests this week, uh Lloyd Powell and his husband, Robert Kahn.
• 54:42
  Brett: The Mary's Naturally Bar Tops, those are going to be on display at the match, September 9th through the 12th.
• 54:49
  Brett: They're going to show them at the gallery there.
• 54:51
  Brett: Do you know the galleries?
• 54:52
  Lee: Yes, I do, I do.
• 54:53
  Lee: And I have seen them before, and they're absolutely amazing.
• 54:56
  Lee: If you get a chance, really, it's a great, great display.
• 54:59
  Lee: You should see it.
• 55:00
  Brett: Yes.
• 55:00
  Brett: And on that last day, Saturday, the 12th, there are two opportunities to do something special.
• 55:04
  Brett: At 10 a.m., they are going to invite people to tell stories about their experiences at Mary's.
• 55:10
  Brett: They're going to set up some chairs and just kind of talk.
• 55:12
  Brett: And then at nine o'clock that night, they are going to do an official toast to Mary's Naturally.
• 55:18
  Brett: And that will be at 9 o'clock at the match on the 12th.
• 55:22
  Brett: But you can see the actual bar tops, the 9th through the 12th, courtesy of Heart of Leather.
• 55:26
  Brett: It's going to be on display at the match.
• 55:28
  Brett: Thank you to Lloyd Powell and Robert Kahn and Heart of Leather.
• 55:31
  Brett: Obviously, Judy Reeves, very involved with that, and super excited to see them do that.
• 55:36
  Lee: Greatly appreciate their efforts.
• 55:37
  Lee: And this is part of our uh history that they have decided to keep.
• 55:41
  Lee: And I appreciate that.
• 55:43
  Brett: Yeah.
• 55:43
  Brett: And then Rhett Martinez and Cindy Wayne, who I spoke to also, they were from Mildred's Umbrella.
• 55:48
  Brett: Their production of Collective Rage will play at the Spring Street Studios September 3rd through the 19th.
• 55:54
  Brett: If you need more information about that, go to Mildred's Umbrella.com.
• 55:59
  Brett: It's a unique chance to see a play by queer artist Jen Silverman, and it addresses the lesbian part of our community very, very well.
• 56:07
  Brett: I think that that would be exciting.
• 56:09
  Brett: I wish they could all like connect with Purbar somehow.
• 56:12
  Brett: Yeah.
• 56:12
  Brett: And just say, hey, come from this.
• 56:16
  Brett: But uh, and of course, thank you to Arlie Ingalls for doing this new segment with me.
• 56:20
  Brett: Thank you for helping to put it all together.
• 56:22
  Brett: Always glad to be here.
• 56:23
  Brett: And I guess that means I have to head to the grocery store soon and then we can uh get dinner ready.
• 56:27
  Brett: Yes.
• 56:28
  Brett: Well, Queer Voices is produced by me, Brett Cullum, with help from Arlie Ingalls.
• 56:32
  Brett: Brian Plavinka and Deborah Moncrief Bell serve as our legacy executive producers.
• 56:39
  Brett: And we are always looking for contributors or people who just want to be on the show.
• 56:43
  Brett: I mean, come on.
• 56:44
  Brett: Yes.
• 56:45
  Brett: Join us.
• 56:46
  Brett: Yes.
• 56:46
  Brett: So you can ping me on social media.
• 56:48
  Brett: I'm pretty easy to find.
• 56:49
  Brett: It's Brett Cullum.
• 56:50
  Brett: That is two Ts on the Brett, and the only vowels in my name are use.
• 56:55
  Brett: And please consider supporting KPFT with a donation at KPFT.org.
• 57:01
  Brett: It helps keep us on the air.
• 57:02
  Brett: All of it, every cent goes to the station's operation.
• 57:06
  Brett: I am a volunteer and I am proud to be part of KPFT and the Pacifica family as both an on-air contributor, but I also give money, so I'm also a donor as well.
• 57:17
  Brett: So thank you for listening to Queer Voices.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_08: This has been Queer Voices, heard on APFT Houston and as a podcast available from several podcasting sources.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_08: Check our web page at queervoices.