This is why we need to stand up for queer people. These rights we won are being threatened and can be taken away very fast. We need to stand up for ourselves and we need to show that we exist and we are not leaving.
Interesting to watch this - I'm from Britain and I remember in the early 90s my uni gay society was "LGB", no T, no Q, nothing about anything other than loving within a binary. The Pink Paper regularly had letters from angry gay men who thought lesbians were jumping on their hard-fought-and-won efforts, and angry lesbians and gays saying bisexuals were fake... London clubs were great and it was an amazing time to be young and gay, but I felt such a stigma to call myself bi. And then it took until 2016 before I was also able to identify as genderqueer, and I thank our young people now for giving me the words to know who I am. We pass the torch back and forth, each time the flame gets brighter. Let's hope current times don't make us have to hide it again. Thanks for your film.
@@bordershader it was a trans woman and a lesbian that helped me nurse my partner Pete, AIDS before medication was horrifying and our friends melted away, remember at stonewall it was a trans woman who threw the first brick, we owe our trans brothers and sisters a huge amount.
@andrewgoodbody2121 I'm so sorry for your loss, and I'm glad you had friends to support you during a time of such prejudice and stigma - and thank you for the reminder of the Stonewall heroine Marsha P. Johnson. We all owe her so, so much.
Brave men. I remember this so well. I am from Minnesota, but wasn't out in high school - I wasn't even sure I was gay. I graduated in 1966 and went to Yale. The first day at Yale I met my first boy friend / lover. Even in 1966, Yale was a safe and welcoming space for gays. I never hid my sexual orientation and in 1970, I was elected as chair of our college council. I was so lucky, never to have experienced any serious discrimination.❤
I’m from small town Canada, about a 4-hour drive to Duluth, MN. I’ve been to the bars across Canada and the US coast to coast, and I can tell you that The Main Club in Duluth, MN can hold their own against any from the larger cities. It’s a great bar, large sized, interesting decor, and a lot of fun! I would say it’s one of my fav bars I have been to. I live across the country now, so we cannot drive up for the weekend like we used to, but I do miss it and recommend it to anyone!
Yup alphabet people who are a minority want the same rights of the majority. Seems to me that is the opposite of a Democracy. If you don't like this country don't exspect me to condone what you do unless you want to leave the country.
Awesome story! My life as a gay man was difficult & after marriage to a woman to try & change myself, divorced! Later found my life partner only to lose him to an accidental overdose from pain medication, he was hooked on from car accident years before! I am out proud but getting old with family & friends but alone with out a partner! Regret the guy I was in love with when young because he & I both couldn’t except ourselves!
This is wonderful! So glad the history of Loring Park was talked about. Even as a young sheltered student in the 90s I was aware of Loring as a LGBTQ neighborhood
Awesome documentary about history that I mostly lived and breathed. I knew many of the people featured in this. So it was very nostalgic, as well as once again reminding me of how far we have come. But not quite far enough. So we have to keep working, and especially support younger generations who are picking up the torch, adding their own perspectives, strategies, and energy!
Building community by visibility was a radical act . I grew up around a lesbian aunt. From an early age I knew what she was. Only women friends. No men were noticeable. Years earlier she and her friend pretended to be straight by dating men publicly. The men were gay. So it may have looked normal to outsiders. Your average person had no idea.
There is one anachromism here: they didn't have "LGBTQ" in those days. The word that "Q" stands for was considered deeply offensive, and for some people it still is. The terms and initials for the community evolved from the "gay community," to the "gay & lesbian community," to the "gay, lesbian, bisexual community," to the "gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community." Somewhere along the line the "G" and "L" were reversed. Then at some point "Q" was added. Then "I" was added, and then "A," which, correct me if I'm wrong, stand for "intersex" and allies.
Growing up in the 60s and 70s in small town Minnesota we had Gay people. They were very closeted. Had to be. Several reasons that then seemed cemented into reality. Religion was the biggest . Society didn’t give us space, Religion gave us no voice. Even the most obvious queer pretended to be straight. Lesbians dated men in order to survive. Gay men, too. The big cities were our refuge. Remain so today.
I spent many years ('87-'23) in the Twin cities. Moved when I was almost 30yo in '87 from Manhattan, Kansas as a gay man, looking for an improvement in my life and be able to be myself in daily life. I met the man I'd become "husband" to in '92, Roy Richardson. That year we exchanged marriage vows just between the two of us, among hordes of tourists, in Notre Dame de Paris in front of the statue of Joan of Arc (hope it survived the fire). Before the Internet was widespread, Roy was a moderator in the Compuserve HSX100 forum for LGBT people and heavily involved in supporting people with AIDS and fighting AIDS discrimination nationwide there (I still have the text of some of the conversations he had with people while I lived with him). He was HIV positive when we met (I was and am still negative). I moved into his house in Uptown in '92 and we lived there until he died of AIDS in '98. After that I moved not far to a house on Lyndale & 33rd St, recovering from the loss, burying myself in job and hobbies until I retired to Santa Fe in 2023. A ton of fond memories of the Twin Cities, it was a great place to live out the majority of adult life as a gay man and even at work (shout out to Target Corp Tech Services), never had any issues being out. Highly recommended, esp. now that the weather seemed to be getting "better" depending on who you ask. Anyway, thanks so much for this history. It's very important to have this on TH-cam in an easily accessible place for everyone.
Yes, my experience is much the same. Fargo 1980 had zero bars for the gay community. We had a monthly dance. Prairie Gay Community. Not very friendly. Clique. Small groups of gays that were very tight.
TheBrass Rail is my favorite Gay bar in the twin cities. Overall every gay bar is above average. I lived in San Francisco where every bar has a gay clientel.
This is why we need to stand up for queer people. These rights we won are being threatened and can be taken away very fast. We need to stand up for ourselves and we need to show that we exist and we are not leaving.
ABSOLUTELY RIGHT 🏳️🌈
Interesting to watch this - I'm from Britain and I remember in the early 90s my uni gay society was "LGB", no T, no Q, nothing about anything other than loving within a binary. The Pink Paper regularly had letters from angry gay men who thought lesbians were jumping on their hard-fought-and-won efforts, and angry lesbians and gays saying bisexuals were fake... London clubs were great and it was an amazing time to be young and gay, but I felt such a stigma to call myself bi. And then it took until 2016 before I was also able to identify as genderqueer, and I thank our young people now for giving me the words to know who I am. We pass the torch back and forth, each time the flame gets brighter. Let's hope current times don't make us have to hide it again. Thanks for your film.
@@bordershader it was a trans woman and a lesbian that helped me nurse my partner Pete, AIDS before medication was horrifying and our friends melted away, remember at stonewall it was a trans woman who threw the first brick, we owe our trans brothers and sisters a huge amount.
@andrewgoodbody2121 I'm so sorry for your loss, and I'm glad you had friends to support you during a time of such prejudice and stigma - and thank you for the reminder of the Stonewall heroine Marsha P. Johnson. We all owe her so, so much.
These docos are so important - thank you for making them
Brave men. I remember this so well. I am from Minnesota, but wasn't out in high school - I wasn't even sure I was gay. I graduated in 1966 and went to Yale. The first day at Yale I met my first boy friend / lover. Even in 1966, Yale was a safe and welcoming space for gays. I never hid my sexual orientation and in 1970, I was elected as chair of our college council. I was so lucky, never to have experienced any serious discrimination.❤
I’m from small town Canada, about a 4-hour drive to Duluth, MN. I’ve been to the bars across Canada and the US coast to coast, and I can tell you that The Main Club in Duluth, MN can hold their own against any from the larger cities. It’s a great bar, large sized, interesting decor, and a lot of fun! I would say it’s one of my fav bars I have been to. I live across the country now, so we cannot drive up for the weekend like we used to, but I do miss it and recommend it to anyone!
Yup alphabet people who are a minority want the same rights of the majority. Seems to me that is the opposite of a Democracy. If you don't like this country don't exspect me to condone what you do unless you want to leave the country.
Awesome story! My life as a gay man was difficult & after marriage to a woman to try & change myself, divorced! Later found my life partner only to lose him to an accidental overdose from pain medication, he was hooked on from car accident years before! I am out proud but getting old with family & friends but alone with out a partner! Regret the guy I was in love with when young because he & I both couldn’t except ourselves!
This is wonderful! So glad the history of Loring Park was talked about. Even as a young sheltered student in the 90s I was aware of Loring as a LGBTQ neighborhood
Awesome documentary about history that I mostly lived and breathed. I knew many of the people featured in this. So it was very nostalgic, as well as once again reminding me of how far we have come. But not quite far enough. So we have to keep working, and especially support younger generations who are picking up the torch, adding their own perspectives, strategies, and energy!
Building community by visibility was a radical act . I grew up around a lesbian aunt. From an early age I knew what she was. Only women friends. No men were noticeable. Years earlier she and her friend pretended to be straight by dating men publicly. The men were gay. So it may have looked normal to outsiders. Your average person had no idea.
There is one anachromism here: they didn't have "LGBTQ" in those days. The word that "Q" stands for was considered deeply offensive, and for some people it still is. The terms and initials for the community evolved from the "gay community," to the "gay & lesbian community," to the "gay, lesbian, bisexual community," to the "gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community." Somewhere along the line the "G" and "L" were reversed. Then at some point "Q" was added. Then "I" was added, and then "A," which, correct me if I'm wrong, stand for "intersex" and allies.
Growing up in the 60s and 70s in small town Minnesota we had Gay people. They were very closeted. Had to be. Several reasons that then seemed cemented into reality. Religion was the biggest . Society didn’t give us space, Religion gave us no voice. Even the most obvious queer pretended to be straight. Lesbians dated men in order to survive. Gay men, too. The big cities were our refuge. Remain so today.
IM GAY OUT AND PROUD🌈❤️🌈❤️🌈❤️🌈❤️🌈❤️🌈❤️🌈❤️🌈❤️🌈❤️
I spent many years ('87-'23) in the Twin cities. Moved when I was almost 30yo in '87 from Manhattan, Kansas as a gay man, looking for an improvement in my life and be able to be myself in daily life. I met the man I'd become "husband" to in '92, Roy Richardson. That year we exchanged marriage vows just between the two of us, among hordes of tourists, in Notre Dame de Paris in front of the statue of Joan of Arc (hope it survived the fire). Before the Internet was widespread, Roy was a moderator in the Compuserve HSX100 forum for LGBT people and heavily involved in supporting people with AIDS and fighting AIDS discrimination nationwide there (I still have the text of some of the conversations he had with people while I lived with him). He was HIV positive when we met (I was and am still negative). I moved into his house in Uptown in '92 and we lived there until he died of AIDS in '98. After that I moved not far to a house on Lyndale & 33rd St, recovering from the loss, burying myself in job and hobbies until I retired to Santa Fe in 2023. A ton of fond memories of the Twin Cities, it was a great place to live out the majority of adult life as a gay man and even at work (shout out to Target Corp Tech Services), never had any issues being out. Highly recommended, esp. now that the weather seemed to be getting "better" depending on who you ask. Anyway, thanks so much for this history. It's very important to have this on TH-cam in an easily accessible place for everyone.
Why is Marquis de Sade shown while Magnus Hirschfeld was mentioned? ( i e his book) Confusing.
Because it was part of his library? Why else
great video shame that the musaic make parts hard to hear !
The bars were our safe space. Where we could be ourselves. Outside of the bars life was harsh. We got dumped upon.
Rights activism should not be traded ever.
Yes, my experience is much the same. Fargo 1980 had zero bars for the gay community. We had a monthly dance. Prairie Gay Community. Not very friendly. Clique. Small groups of gays that were very tight.
TheBrass Rail is my favorite Gay bar in the twin cities. Overall every gay bar is above average. I lived in San Francisco where every bar has a gay clientel.
Didn't expect to see myself at 25:25
Sad the 19 might be gone forver 😢
🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈 Love is gay 🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈 W Gay Wedding 🫂💞❤️ 🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈 The Freedom Flag 🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈✨✌️🌞👍
And now we might have a huge set back because of the new administration 😢
❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤
Young gay people will never understand what it felt like!
And hopefully our young sisters and brothers never will ... 🏳️🌈
@2:19 America needs a Bonfire.