In the Life: Ep. 1503, "Downsizing Stereotypes"

on this edition of in the life downsizing stereotypes I think being a lesbian was in my favor overcoming odds I was abandoned at six months South African activism all this and more on America's gay and lesbian news magazine in the lights then the life is funded in part by the H van Ameren foundation additional support provided by the Ford Foundation the arcus foundation and the annual support of in the Life Members like you welcome to in the life I'm Alan stereotypes about sexual orientation continue to be shattered as more people come out in their private and public lives tonight we turn to the arena of the workplace where we'll meet five remarkable individuals each one an innovator making a positive impact on the job and challenging the assumptions of what it means to be a GLBT person tonight a beauty queen from simpler times and then they gave me my beautiful sash and my lovely tiara and the power world more impacting pop culture I'm the young one he's the straight one and a place to come out he said well what kind of what kind of girls you into I'm not and then the boys you know but to meet a woman who challenges several ingrained stereotypes about gender not only is Michelle camera a female firefighter she's also a fire captain second-in-command accompany number 63 in Venice California and while navigating some major transitions of her own she's made a distinctive mark at the firehouse most people today because the way society is will look at she's a female captain before they look at her skills I've been a firefighter for 27 years it's been my life for a long time within the county since 1978 first line supervisor on a engine company fighting fire with my crew I'm the captain on engine 63 being in a fire inside of a building on fire at a brush fire with a lot of exciting fire and activity it's it's a adrenalin producing and it's great and I've you know I've paid the price too I have a permanent lung damage I have a herniated disc I've had I've been burned I've had ceilings fall on me I've broken my wrist it's a dangerous job we are looked at many times in the public basically male big strong and masculine I think is our image well women in the fire service is a fairly new phenomenon and the fire service just as the fire service resisted you know afro-american people they've really resisted women in the fire service they don't trouble working with her they have difficulties in understanding her there wasn't a letter that came in that said you know hey Michelle Kaymer is a lesbian on the fire department or anything like that being a gay lesbian has been such a closeted thing for so many years it's such an unknown and queer and weird thing that there's a lot of fear on that if she had come to me and basically tried to shove her lesbian ism down my throat or or demand some type of different treatment because she is a lesbian then I'd have probably had a problem with it because is it threatening because their own masculinity or their own femininity is is threatened it's because people in super macho occupations have very fragile masculinities in the first place the men feel and women here feel very stressed out having gay and lesbian captain and gay and lesbian living have to realize this is not just a job we live sleep shower eat together change together so it's not just a job we live together ten days a month our whole lives they're forced to live with a lesbian yes and it doesn't rub off that was part of part of the reaction you know it seems to me that some of the fear about being around gay and lesbian people but they respect her as a good firefighter and a great captain so there's tolerance and respect but there's definitely no support for her here it's hard for her there was people that refused to work overtime on my shift because I was there and weird or whatever so it'd be a women's locker room is a fairly new thing here we have three women working here myself and two other paramedic women so we have a temporary sign saying women's locker room and then somebody put up this sign that says female and male occupied unoccupied but I hate this line because if it's redundant then somebody put a screw in here so you can't change it so it's always female occupied or unoccupied it's so bizarre this drawer reminds me of my life it's quite cluttered my life had a very problematic childhood because my gender identity from as early as I can remember has been girl woman female and I was born with male genitalia and I was a normal male baby and child and so I was extremely confused fearing embarrassment shame and being beaten I didn't you know I couldn't express myself our ass my ass my parents or my mother to dress me up as a girl because that's what I thought I should be or who I was so I kept it all inside for many years and and I secretly cross-dressed I felt certain as I as I grew up that it was a woman as a woman I am a woman in the meantime I got on I was in the Navy and married a sweetheart from high school we had two kids and then I decided to keep exploring myself and growing and trying to figure out who I am and and I came out of the closet and became a woman full time I was in a little fire station not far from here with a crew of three people underneath me it was very difficult for them and it's very difficult for a lot of people to make that switch have a nice day I used to work with Tom's brother Tom's brother was a paramedic here when I was email fire captain so this is my second time here as a captain and first time is a male second time is a woman it is kind of shocking and confusing for people that you know here um I was a heterosexual man man and now I'm a woman and still chasing women that you know huh where's that come from so that's confusing to people they can't separate sexual orientation from sexual identity it's they're two separate things so my sexual orientation really didn't change its my sex that changed so my interest in I am I just and my attraction is to women and always has been they do not understand how she could be a lesbian having changed for her physical being into a female and still having a designer sexually towards female has been hard no it hasn't been hard at all she's just you know it's just another person to work with as far as I'm concerned comfortable it's just like something I've that most people don't come across in their day-to-day life you know so it's a little different we had a person the other day that could not work with her he had some real psychological hang-ups and just being around just because he knew her when she was a man and he couldn't handle it and I've had to deal with those old feelings of sharing a locker room with a man I've known for 15 years that changed into a woman and now she has feelings for a woman and yet I'm changing in the locker room with her I had to deal with those feelings I think being a lesbian was in my favor because I was far less threatening and then if I had transitioned and become a woman then suddenly was interested in dating men I think the firefighters would be would have been a lot more uncomfortable because of the homophobia and that they may have thought that you know I would you know be scamming and trying to pick up men often I've tried to be as accommodating as possible and sometimes I will get my bedding and I will put it on the floor and like the workout room or the weight room and sleep in there it anyway that's what I've done and that's an alarm coming in from seems to me I was very successful in my transition from male to female because I had such a good reputation you know as a as a strong worker and a productive firefighter she sheds a good light on gay lesbian in the workplace because she's positive energetic very professional hard-working devoted and so it makes it a heck of a lot easier than to somebody who might have been um that's the caliber the type of cameras this is an equal opportunity country and equal rights mean equal rights across the board as far as we're concerned we were appalled that job job opportunities and job security were different for the gay and lesbian community that they could be fired because they were gay or lesbian okay that's unacceptable benefits Social Security inheritance adoption marriage being able to be with the one you love it all ties into the same thing which is an environment that exists that says it's okay to deny these things to the gay community when it comes to having a major impact on the face of pop culture only a handful of people in the world can boast the accomplishments of Tom Schumacher and some work alongside them at the same firm we're talking about the Walt Disney Company where Schumacher participates at the highest level now you're probably thinking who the hell am i well I am Thomas Schumacher thank you thank you very much we caught up with the always busy tony Schumacher the final dress rehearsal of the Los Angeles production of the Lion King the audience that night was made up of Disney employees we are taking photographs tonight I've been out gay man since my freshman year of college I have never once in my entire not almost 13 years of working for this company had anyone questioned me ever on this topic fact that I make work for families and make work for children that's great to me that's not in any way at odds because my whole life I've done this when I was in high school I directed the children's theater company I've was a playground leader I was a camp counselor I've been a drama teacher so to me it just is a natural extension of what I do I've spent so much of my life working with kids and it is kids who are perhaps the most familiar with his work Tom Schumacher is the president of Disney theatrical productions president of Walt Disney Feature animation and president of Disney television animation he's overseen every major animated hit since the company's Renaissance in this arena began in the late 1980s at the core of almost every animated movie is some fundamental theme or more a lesson inside also all the movies is this idea of self of who are you Aladdin is searching for self the Beast has to find out who he is and the reason we search for self is because we fear that we're not accepted from the point of view as a gay person these movies speak to everyone who feels that they're outside that they haven't been given access they say that we do need to accept others bring people in that were made mightier by inclusion not by exclusion but as as I can out gay characters never been won in the Disney animated movie minors head out as passionate as Schumacher feels about the films he's made animation was never an area he expected to immerse himself in before arriving at Disney in 1988 Schumacher worked in theater all through high school I obsessed on theater went to UCLA to be a theater major immediately when I graduated I began working for a very important theatre company in the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles eventually you know as a bazillion jobs but I ended up coming to Disney with no animation experience to produce an animated movie Schumacher was brought into Disney by Peter Schneider you know I first met Tom back in 1983 when we were both working on the Los Angeles Olympics we had an office about the size of a postage stamp at the Mark Taper Forum was during the Olympic Arts Festival and and we had to share an office really about as big as the back seat of my car five years later Schneider as the new head of Disney animation asked Schumacher to produce the rescuers down under the rest as they say is history and everything written about Disney's rebirth in feature animation Schumacher and Schneider are invariably mentioned together I'm the young one he's the straight one you know I think it's very rare to find someone who can be a partner with you and we've shared almost 15 maybe 18 years of working together and knowing each other I can tell you what Peter will say to almost everything that comes up and vice versa if we're very much in sync about how to problem-solve what to do it's the most unique relationship in my life in terms of being able to think the same way you never know who's in charge of what we share things completely so I think we're really indistinguishable in some ways and yet we are completely wrong people the two are so successful with animation that Michael Eisner asked them to launch Disney on Broadway with the now hit musicals Aida and The Lion King when the idea of taking Lion King to Broadway first came up my response was well we can't because it doesn't fit if it's not a Broadway style musical to begin with and it's it's all animals and the only made one phone call one phone call together and that was to Julie Taymor Tom in particular was really interested in pushing the boundaries of what commercial theater was what people would expect to see on a Broadway stage he's one of the funniest people and if you can't have a sense of humor when you're dealing with budgets crises firing actors hiring getting rid making changes it's just who wants to do it Byronic Lee for Peter and I the day we stood there holding our Tony Award in our hands for The Lion King we got a Tony Award by coming to a company to make animated movies and then going back into the theater where both of us had started there's knees next Broadway venture after the Lion King was Aida where Schumacher again collaborated with Lion King composer Elton John there were no limitations creatively put on Aida we have financial limitations obvious I have to work within a budget and as to make sense but I had the resources to call upon almost anybody and say hi I'm working on the musicals like I actually said Alton hi I'm working on this thing do you wanna write on it I love fanatically what the piece says these two lovers who come together from opposite worlds who find each other I thought it's kind of a spiritual side to it I like long-term commitment plays an important role in Schumacher's life he's been devoted to Disney for over 12 years his close friendship and partnership with Peter Schneider reaches back 18 years but his longest commitment is to his life partner and other half Matthew White they've been together for almost 20 years we met at the Los Angeles Ballet and Matthew was a dancer and I was hired to be the assistant general manager of the company and on my very first day at the Los Angeles ballet a board member who is since been a good friend of ours said to me I won't let you know that as a staff member here you are not allowed to date any of the women in the company and I said yes ma'am that won't be a problem since this ballet days Matt white has shifted his focus to interior design his work on their New York apartment was featured in the September 2000 edition of Architectural Digest we visited Tom and Matt at the Los Angeles home where the design decisions often go to Matt tom has great taste I mean look at what he does I mean he has great taste but when did you finally throw out all my stuff it's not thrown out it's something you know when you mess when you measure lives it's it takes a while to sort it out and finally we've sorted it out and his stuff is all in the basement the years together have made Schumacher and white keenly aware of the limitations of the law in cheating gay couples as a family unit for us in terms of just the organizing of our business affairs the simple protection you would get in California the simple protection you get from from being married the stack of paperwork that we have to have the ridiculous it's a it is it is as much as it's appalling medical power of attorney so that if Matt's in an accident in the hospital I so that I can get into the hospital and make decisions about his healthcare let alone just this him in the hospital that I have to walk in with a legal document it's disgraceful it's disgraceful in America that that happens no matter what your level that you know it it can all be taken away like that because there's no legal binding together on the company level Disney added domestic partner benefits in 1996 Michael Eisner you have decided to give health benefits to all your employees same-sex benefits was that a tough decision we have a non-discriminatory policy at the Walt Disney Company but you might have been easier to taking the safer Road right no no the safer Road is the right road yeah but when I came here you know that we didn't have domestic partner benefits which we do now it was very important to me and I was given an opportunity because I'm the senior executive the company I was given opportunity to make it very clear how I felt and I felt very listened to I probably wouldn't be here today if we didn't extend these benefits in an artistic environment when you are trying to foster people being completely open you know think about people have to do here they pour their souls out whether onto a piece of paper onto board when they're painting not just when they're drawing people are giving giving giving of their souls and the way you get people to do that the way you can do that is try to create an environment where people are just too open I work for the ultimate and family entertainment company you think about it you know you feel like you know I'm you know like super homo you know is that my job everywhere I turn on one hand you feel like oh my I have to be the model gay man and then you realize no I just have to get my job done and support my family and do my work and always do something that I'd be proud of you in 1950 the United States Senate report targeted homosexuals as a government security risk untold numbers of suspected gay men and lesbians lost their jobs today just over fifty years later the Human Rights Campaign has identified well over 2000 companies colleges and universities state and local governments and federal agencies that have written non-discrimination policies covering sexual orientation I'm Sam Barron's you're watching in the life tonight's highlighted documentary Simon and I traces the lives of two dynamic activists who secured civil rights for the gay community in a most unlikely place and most unlikely time feminine eyes about Simon and Cody who as a mentor of mine who was a leader in the ANC movement and he apartheid he was jailed for a long time and he came out as being gay and then kind of started the gay movement as it happened in the early 90s and in Johannesburg in particular you know started the first pride march and that type of thing it's also a history of how the South African gay and lesbian movement emerged all the way to end the Constitution past sexual orientation by the late 1980s apartheid had reached a fever pitch throwing the South African political and social system into serious turmoil blacks were still classified as non citizens within this oppressive setting activist Simon Nicol II initiated glow the gay and lesbian organization of wit waters when I first met Simon it was at the first first meeting of glow and for whatever reason I just felt that I should be one of the people that's like standing right next to him you know largely because there wasn't any black queer woman coming out at that time so he taught me a lot he was a very very good friend that first pride was one of the best days of my life but I was on TV that night it was a religious show and a priest was saying these people should be killed all of a sudden I was getting funny looks from people in the street I thought oh oh what have I done two days later I was sitting in my room when I heard voices outside calling my name I ran into the lounge and my granny opened the door and told me to hide about 20 and remain was surrounding our house demanding that I come with them so they could teach me a lesson the worst thing was that they threatened to take my grandma if I didn't go with them getting by Omar YK no more Hey as handy you know barato one side I have like several underlying reasons for wanting to tell the story but I think the first thing was to acknowledge Simon and Corey for who and what he really was I needed to make sure that that's known that this is the man who started this movement in this way and it's not like there was no movement there were organizations in South Africa before Simon who when he came along but they were very white male and there was nothing that could unify black gay and lesbian or any other people of color basically inside the movement so that's really what he sparked self-confidence amongst young gay people to actually have them stand up for themselves and that first pride march was ingenious it was at the right moment you know our races came together everyone had this vision go was organized in 1990 the same year Nelson Mandela was released from prison four years later the culmination of these two events would result in the first all-race election in South Africa Nelson Mandela as a newly elected president proposed a constitution guaranteeing equal rights to all citizens this constitution was approved in 1996 democratic political order in which regardless of color gender religion political opinion or sexual orientation your law will provide for the Equal Protection South Africa is one of I think the only one still with a constitution that includes sexual orientation under the Bill of Rights yeah and that is still a phenomenal thing to a lot of people around the world after the constitutional victory Nicoli formed the township AIDS Project they have joined this endeavor as an AIDS educator specializing in lesbian health issues but later she and Simon would head in separate directions as an HIV positive person Simon's battle on behalf of AIDS victims was an intensely personal one while his work became increasingly more devoted to this singular cause they have defined her role as a spokesperson for women's issues it would be the 10th anniversary of glue that would finally reunite them I think we really like in South Africa to be talking today after 10 years of our struggle I mean 10 years I'm talking about when Morris formed because there was nothing nothing was happening before them Simon passed away a week after we did the first filming with bourbon and Simon and so we had to change our perspective a little bit I think for Bev speaking for Bev emotionally a very brave movie she put her heart and soul on the screen and I think there were some rocky times there but she came through it was really my vision to make sure that the history comes out and just the acknowledging of the person who meant a lot for all of us even to people who don't know that this was the guy that actually gets you walking in the street a little freer than normal you know I mean because of him we are all we because of him I know he so needs to rest and he did his work and he did it drag performers stretch and challenge our notions of gender inspired by this rich tradition Russ King has skillfully designed a throwback to simpler times but as you'll soon see Kings creation as a complicated character with a wit and style uniquely her own a beauty pageant winner from Minnesota she's an active church member lives in a trailer park and is a self-proclaimed minister of beauty and through beauty she's bringing the best of Minnesota to the masses created by Russ King miss Richfield 1981 his distinctive character with a story or her own I grew up in a home of four boys I was the youngest and it was a very conservative Christian home my parents they were very strict with us we didn't dance we didn't go to movies we didn't play cards so my knowledge of pop culture is very limited I never really wanted to be a woman that was never the case I think miss Richfield 1981 is a throwback to a more traditional sense of drag I don't wear any boobs I don't wear hips and so there's no illusion there I don't wear girdle and so it's a very much more natural than obviously a guy in a dress there's also the sense of appreciation for what miss Richfield is and that's the gloves that match the shoes and the handbag and sometimes a hat and all of those details all the things that women don't have to deal with today miss Richfield it's a woman who I refer to as a gal who has clawed her way to the middle I was there in augsburg Park and there was 11 contestants that year 1981 was a very big year for beauty and there's another gal right in front of me Trudy Olson who was kind of one of our gals and she was twirling three flaming batons lost control took out the whole front row of contestants in a terrible fire Oh I don't know if you've seen taffeta burn but that was the only gal to stop drop and roll because when you live in a trailer you know what to do in case of fire you're not getting out of a window that's big you know what I've seen and there was only one contestant left that's right yours truly it only took the judges about Oh 15 20 minutes to deliberate and then they gave me my beautiful sash and my lovely tiara and the power-law and more something that I played that day for the pageant also extremely narcissistic extremely self-involved not realizing that I think is what makes her so charming they like my my homestyle sense of life my practicality I mean really when you think about it you take away my fabulous gowns my beautiful I wear my my Broadway sound that takes a house down every night take away this hair that's jacked up to Jesus and I'm just a bingo girl from Minnesota just a simple gal members of Miss richfield's church continually raise money to finance her road trips miss Richfield believes they're sending her off to share her ministry with the world but what she fails to notice is that these tickets are always one-way only big partnership go to be safe she is miss Richfield represents a speak that women generally don't use anymore a sort of way of insulting you but phrasing it as a compliment stand up the humidity isn't it I mean honestly honestly this frosted look is coming back I mean it if any of you gals have that 80s sort of frosted look that she's got going hang on to it Wow I know that's what I say why why why have mine done I know um she represents a throwback to the past that's simpler and sort of an underdog characteristic that makes people want to get behind it and help her out miss Richfield is the embodiment of everything that Minnesota tries to keep under that Minnesota nice guys this ritual is the best because she can break down any kind of stereotype my boring nine-to-five job as mayor of Minneapolis but my real job is to be the spear carrier from this Richfield little carnival that she does throughout the city of Minneapolis Eirene Monroe has always had a sturdy sense of herself and she's never shied away from challenges throughout her life in 1999 we first visited this remarkable theologian at Harvard University I was abandoned at six months they estimated that I was about six months and so where most people have a date of birth and certainly have a birth name they estimated since they found me on July 11th that January 11th would be my birth date assigned birth date and I get the name Irene Monroe because sister Irene who was the head none of the New York foundling Hospital which is in New York City was a Marilyn Monroe fan and so she named me Irene Monroe just looking at my life I'm I grew up in a economically distressed enclave of Brooklyn New York with foster parents who unfortunately were functionally illiterate and they also as example showed me the difficulty of not having an education so education was was absolutely essential Irene and her partner dr. Thea James an emergency room physician live in Cambridge Massachusetts with her dog and cat Irene and Thea have been together for five years Thea is my best friend my my me my as they say my bestest of friends she's really my best friend she runs this race with me she would say she's more discipline she is I'm a little scattered she wakes up in a good mood every morning she's always smiling as a matter of fact when I first met her I thought it was a little weird that she'd wake up in the morning and she'd sing to the animals you know she'd sing to the dogs she'd sing to the cat I thought it was a little strange but now you know I'm used to it and I appreciate it and it's a wonderful thing you know to wake up to someone like that every day she's really learned what it can be like to have your partner as your best friend and how wonderful it can be and how it can it can go on and it can last forever and I probably in turn I've learned that from her a graduate of both Wellesley College and Union seminary Irene is a doctoral student at Harvard Divinity School where she's head Teaching Fellow for Reverend Peter gold Peter Gomes has been a mentor I have to say in my life here at Harvard it's been quite difficult being an african-american lesbian doctoral student and particularly at the Divinity School I haven't had very much mentoring and being his head Teaching Fellow has been a wonderful gift Irene has standards very high standards and she takes no nonsense she's been there done that and she's also a first-class academician so she knows all of the academic games so she's perfect you know in a place full of hustlers and posers such as Harvard College you can't get away with anything with Irene I'm and I'm glad she's working for me and not against babe in his 1997 national bestseller the good book Reverend Peter Gomes points out that the Bible is being misinterpreted by the religious right to exclude gays and lesbians from the kingdom of God well I say there's a tremendous burden of moral responsibility and guilt on anybody who would presume to exclude gays and lesbians and sexual minorities from the kingdom of heaven and any Christian who presumes to speak that invites divine wrath and retribution that is that is the most arrogant and wicked assumption on the part of fallible human beings of divine power and everything that we know about God is contrary to that parochial petty little point of view so I think the good news the gospel for gay people is that you may have a beef with the church and the church may even have a beef with you but you don't have a beef with God and God certainly doesn't have one with you I do think that is lesbian gay bisexual and transgender people we need to take back the Bible the very tool that's used as a as a tool of oppression we can turn that around to be a tool of liberation african-americans did that clearly when the Bible was certainly used as the biblical legitimate biblical sanction for slavery and we've turned that round turned that around as a tool of of liberation women have turned the Bible around as a tool of liberation and it's now our time to do the same through preaching participating in seminars and conferences across the country and writing a weekly newspaper column irenan fulfills our code to be what she refers to as a public theologian it's important that those of us who are queer theologians to make ourself accessible in a way to explain to our community how religion is used against us but at the same time can be used to liberate us she's out there she's getting their hands dirty she's out there among the people so I see her role I see her theology is coming from doing that kind of work it's certainly not my experience of her is that she's certainly not doing theology from the ivory tower then she's taking theology back where it belongs on the streets in the newspaper on the radio and television she talks theologically the people who don't know she's talking theologically which probably is the best way to do it last year Iren started some controversy particularly in the African American community when she wrote an article about Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan I opened up saying that his misogyny is no different than Christian african-american Christian ministers but that because Louis Farrakhan is in the limelight we have a lot more quotes by him and a lot more information about how he has shaped his misogyny and homophobia but in essence this kind of misogyny that he exposes in homophobia is really pandemic throughout the entire as I see it African can community to have one kind of a street extremism shape the American culture shed is very much what democracy is about which is about freedom individual freedom you can't help how you come in this world but you certainly can help how you leave it and what you do while you hear God's gift to us is our life and what we do what our life is our gift back to God so that's sort of what motivates me if you kicked all the gays and lesbians out of the Navy and the Army and the Air Force we'd have trouble running the place properly I think if you're brave enough to sign up to after Afghanistan and go over there and get yourself shot then you're to be proud enough to join the army and say who you are it's disrelish I think the United States and Turkey are the only countries in NATO that don't allow people to say who they are we've got a ton of gays and lesbians in the military already so it's not a matter of whether we're gonna let gays and lesbians serve in the military they do serve in the military it's a matter of whether any human being has a right to be proud of who they are and I think they do coming out is something that GLBT people do every day it's one of the touchstone experiences that link each person to a larger community tonight in keeping with the on-the-job theme we feature personal memories about coming outs at work I landed a job of being a band director for a high school I kept a picture of my lover at time on my desk in the in the BAM director's office and and I was certainly a very progressive person and they knew that and it early on came time for a three-day weekend or some sort of holiday and I said well I meant I'm going away I'm going to San Francisco to be with my my significant other or I used some other you know cooky term genderless term and there was sort of an awkward pause in the room and then some wiseass kid in the back said what's his name and the whole room got quiet and all the kids got sort of tense and I said I looked at him I said Mike very deadpan and it kind of broke the tension and we just moved on from there and it never really was a problem after that it was a marketing position it was like the coolest sellout job and I really liked my co-workers cuz they were a little zany and there was one woman named Joanie and she would stick her head in my office and say things like like out of the blue and say things like I don't like Jessica Simpson she looks like she smells and I was like yeah that's what I always thought what and um but anyway she so she comes in one time we're talking and I'm talking about taking vacation because I'm getting married and she says um oh wow who's the lucky guy and I said well actually it's a woman and she goes oh I love Melissa Etheridge it's like did you see her on the Grammys I was like yeah she was great on the Grammys yeah yeah yeah oh I like her yeah um she's really strong so we so we have a really good you know bonding moment and everything and that's why I knew that I was like that job and then and three weeks later I was called in for sexual harassment and I resigned so that was a little steep learning curve on the acceptance there in the workplace you know it's funny you talk about deciding to come out at work or not to come out and try to make that decision and it's it's really it's kind of a foreign concept to me because I have the gayest job ever I actually have the two gayest jobs ever I write musicals and I teach aerobics and it's you know it's hard for me to think of a more archetypal egay job than that so you know when you're in rehearsal when you're in the fitness studio it's not about oh well you know are people gonna be okay that I'm gay is that gonna be a problem people expect you to be gay people assume you're gay and so you know I've never had two never had to worry about whether to come out or not on the job because at my job it's the norm to be gay it's some you know it's actually and there there are straight people who do these these jobs not very many you know I know a straight lyricist and I know a straight aerobics instructor and everybody thinks their day and they have to come out as straight and you know when they do it it's okay people are cool but there's also an element of like huh well what do you mean what what are you talking about you know it's almost like I work in bizarro world where are 10% of people are straight and it's it's not like they get discriminated against because of that but they do have to think about when and how they're going to correct people's assumptions I was a captain in the military and I had a boss that I had worked for for about a year and a half really closely and we had a really great working relationship and I thought very highly of him but I was closeted the whole time and about a year after we stopped working together we both happened to be at a conference in a different City and we went out to dinner together and during the course of that evening gays-in-the-military came up and it was a theoretical hypothetical conversation because I wasn't out to him and during the conversation it started pretty in a pretty mild way but he started making the typical arguments that people make against gays in the military which is it's bad for morale and you have to shower with them and these just really basic arguments that people make but then what really surprised me was he started going into arguments that I had never heard before arguments that if you allow gays in the military they'll have to live on post and they'll be near children and the children will be at risk and it would be bad for the community and I was really appalled by the points that he was making and I thought wow if I could come out to him I'm somebody who he's known for a long time and it might change the way that he views gay people because clearly he doesn't know any if these is or doesn't know he knows any if these are his preconceived notions about what that means and I did not come out to him and it hurt it hurt not to speak that truth and I think it was a it was a turning point for me in my own maturity process because up until that point being gay in the military and being closeted and I was out to a lot of people - it felt like like I was getting away with something in an almost kind of fun kind of game way that I was pulling one over on people but from that point on by not coming out it felt wrong I had a really interesting moment with a client once he worked in the department of purchasing I was training a software product and it was the summer and I was complaining about the heat saying I just hate this heat and he said well you're from Texas what you know he shouldn't you like the heat and I said well you know I have to wear a suit I wish I could wear flip-flops and shorts and a tank top and then I then I'd love it but unfortunately can't wear that to work and we worked with this you know 25 year old girl really good-looking you know big breasts whole thing and he said listen you get you get Melinda to wear that and you can wear whatever you want okay all right that's great he's like she's pretty hot huh I said yeah I guess he said I bet the girls are really hot in the city because I live in New York and this was out on Long Island I said yeah I guess so he said well what kind of what kind of girls you into I said I'm not I'm into boys and his eyes got really big and he kind of looked away and he never asked me about my personal life after that which was just as well for me but pretty sure after that the whole department knew I was working my first legal job the Legal Aid Society criminal defense division the court was incredibly macho you work night arraignments and there were you know all these great the guys coming through you know with these petty arrests and cops waiting around for their cases to be called and you know that was the atmosphere there were a few women some of those women were gay some of them were in the closet some were sort of half in the closet and I came out I came out boom and happy and thrilled that I had been able to do this and was now living the life I wanted to live and not that long after I came out which was sort of accepted there were lots of mumbles I was called he-man and the you know the the cops had nicknames for me but which was well okay I got pregnant I was inseminated not pregnant and my seventh and eighth month I was really showing and some people weren't thrilled about the fact that I was pregnant and didn't like it and one particular judge in Brooklyn who I assume is no longer there when he saw me walking into his courtroom opening the door at the far end he would spot me and he look at his court officer and he literally sort of get hysterical and say call her case right away I don't want her waiting in my courtroom one extra unnecessary minute I want her out of here and I would walk up towards the bench and lo and behold my case was cold which was a blessing because often employers had to wait around hours but you know that was some of the attitude that was expressed about being a pregnant lesbian in 1979 in Brooklyn Criminal Court I'm Alan from all of us in the life see you next month in the life is funded in part by the H van hammering and Foundation additional support provided by the Ford Foundation the arcus foundation and the annual support of in the Life 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