A Queer Understanding

Neil Laird: Celebrating Queer History & Embracing Fearless Creativity Through Global Storytelling

• Dr. Angelica & Cassy Thompson • Season 6 • Episode 7

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What if history was more colorful than you've ever imagined? Join us on A Queer Understanding as we sit down with Neil Laird, an accomplished documentary filmmaker and TV producer. Neil's journey is as fascinating as the stories he tells. Discover how his passion for cinema and history have converged into a mission to correct the misrepresentations of same-sex love in media through his creative ventures, including his comedic novels and engaging TikTok content.

https://bit.ly/PrimeTimePompeii
https://bit.ly/PrimeTimeTravelers

https://imdb.to/3YV5fok
https://bit.ly/NeilLairdTikTok
https://www.instagram.com/gay_history/


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Neil Laird

Speaker 1

For 25 years, neil Laird traveled the globe making nonfiction films about the ancient world over 1,000 hours in 70 countries.

Speaker 1

He's gleaned a lot about not only how stories need to be told today for mass consumption, but also how we misrepresent those who came before us.

Speaker 1

He has seen firsthand all the things the modern-day books and TV have gotten wrong, especially about same-sex love.

Speaker 1

Modern-day books and TV have gotten wrong, especially about same-sex love. That's why he's now writing a series of comedic novels that not only skew TV production but also how much and how little has changed in thousands of years and what about our modern world is stuck in prehistoric times. Neil is a queer documentary filmmaker. He's a seasoned TV producer for National Geographic, discovery and many others who shares our desires for telling stories of sexual identity, including his own. He publishes a series of adventure novels focusing on subjects like same-sex love to genre identity. His TikTok and Instagram Gay Underscore History genre identity His TikTok and Instagram Gay Underscore History explores similar stories from the first known gay couple in Egypt to the first known transgender community of Mesopotamian priests and famous queer leaders. Here's our conversation.

Speaker 1

Neil Laird is a queer documentary filmmaker and a seasoned TV producer for National Geographic, discovery and many others who shares our desires for telling stories of sexual identity, including his own. For 25 years, neil traveled the globe making non-fiction films about the ancient world over 1,000 hours in 70 countries. He's gleaned a lot about not only how stories need to be told today for mass consumption, but also how we misrepresent those who came before us. He has seen firsthand all the things the modern-day books and TV have gotten wrong, especially about same-sex love. That's why he's now writing a series of comedic novels that not only skew TV production but also how much and how little has changed in thousands of years. And what about our modern world is stuck in prehistoric times. His TikTok and Instagram Gay Underscore History explores similar stories, from the first known gay couple in Egypt to the first known transgender community of Mesopotamian priests and famous queer leaders. Here's our conversation. Hi, neil, thank you for joining us.

Speaker 2

Thanks for having us.

Speaker 1

So I'm really excited to talk to you. We recently spoke to a geneticist, and so I'm getting all these folks who are into like technical things. You being a documentarian, I'm fascinated by history. I actually used to hate it in high school, but I love it now.

Speaker 2

The more history we get of our own, the more we start loving other history, right, yes, yes, so tell us a little bit about how you got started in the industry.

Speaker 2

I've always loved cinema. When I was a kid I was a geeky kid that had the Leonard Moulton movie guys and I was a kid and I would memorize reviews and I would go to every movie that would come out and I would give it a star rating on my calendar and even write in parentheses MGM Entertainment. I was so into the business and all that stuff I thought I'd go to Hollywood and do the documentary route. I don't know, I'd do the fiction route. But then I went to film school in Temple University in Philadelphia this was the 80s, so a good while ago and then I got my Bachelor's of Arts degree and I thought I was going to become Martin Scorsese overnight. It was. It didn't even matter for someone calling me and giving me $100 million to make their picture Right. Well, it didn't happen.

Speaker 2

I went to New York and I was the poor schlub holding a walkie-talkie on some crappy horror film at four in the morning in Queens. Make sure they didn't steal the grip truck, that kind of thing. It was quite dispiriting, quite disillusioning. So I also had a lot of free time. So I started hanging out at the New York Public Library because it was free, air conditioned and the phone wasn't ringing that often, so I had to do something with my day. And then one day I picked up a book about the rise of early civilization, which is something I didn't get in my small Catholic school in Western PA. It was the rise of neolithic culture and cave painting and all that stuff and, as my British mom would say, the penny dropped and that means that something happened where I don't know what it was, but the lights went on and I resolved to teach myself history through the New York Public Library and through my own books and I got to Egypt and Rome and Greece and the ancient world and I got stuck. I became so enamored of that world and I've never been to those places. I studied in London when I was in college but except for Western Europe, I'd never seen the ancient world. So I said, screw it, I want to do it, I'm just better than sitting here waiting to be called for Toxic Avenger Part Six. So I backpacked, I screwed together what money I had and I backpacked to the Middle East, jordan, syria, turkey, israel, egypt, iran until the money ran out and it was absolutely phenomenal and my eyes opened. They still haven't shut.

Speaker 2

So when I came back. I resolved to find a way to get back to those cultures and have somebody else pay for it. I went back to film school, got my master's degree in documentary and this kind of gets to answer your question finally. And then I made my thesis film for school on the Great Sphinx of Egypt because I met some people over there that were restoring it. So I had this amazing access where I could crawl over the Great Sphinx and Giza Secret Passage in the back.

Broadening Perspectives Through Global Exploration

Speaker 2

I went home with the stonemasons who were putting it together and it was not, it was an amazing gift. I was able to sell that, the discovery channel. My thesis film sold to the networks, which was pretty rare for the film school, and I've been doing ever since because that's become my bailiwick since this was the late 90s. Since then I've been probably made over a thousand hours of television, 120, 30 series, maybe more, both in the field and then in the last 10 years as an executive producer, which simply means I'm the guy at the network that would send you out, give me an idea, and then you would go off and do it and I would give you a bunch of red notes and say what the hell were you thinking, make this better, the corporate guy.

Speaker 2

It was all about history. Everything has been informed by travel and history my whole life.

Speaker 1

Okay, that's what I was wondering, if it was all focused on history.

Speaker 2

I've done all manner. I've done weight loss shows and I've done reality shows. Luckily not too many, but certainly the bread and butter. If you go to the IMDb page, about 80% is good Then there's a few stinkers in there. You can just roll past.

Speaker 1

That always happens. Everybody has a few flops. That always happens, everybody has a few flops, yes. So what have you learned in all your years of filmmaking and exploring the world?

Speaker 2

That's such a broad question. Can you narrow that down? Vis-a-vis myself, vis-a-vis culture, sexuality, let's start with culture.

Speaker 2

Well, certainly it's a cliche, but people are far more similar than they are separate. And all the politics you know, growing up particularly in the Middle East, which has been my place. You grow up in the States. Anything Muslim, anything from that part of the world, is dangerous. It's terrorism. It's something to be feared from way back from the Iranian revolution through 9-11 and everything else. The sense that Islam is out to get us is such BS the people, and the people are not the politicians. And that's probably the biggest thing I learned going to places like Egypt and Iran, which is not an easy place to get into Syria, the places we consider on the hit list the most dangerous places, and that's not to dismiss the governments. They can be very corrupt and very dangerous, but the people are very different, the people in these countries, particularly these Islamic countries. They're so old Egypt's been around for four and a half thousand years. They have seen it all. Their politicians come and go. They've buried so many pharaohs that they don't get caught up in the politics of it and they accept you when you come in as yourself, and that was so embracing when I traveled.

Speaker 2

I have so many wonderful stories of one time I got lost in Eastern Turkey and I couldn't find my way out. This was before I had a cell phone and an old couple took me in, didn't know who I was, took me in and let me stay three or four days and I couldn't get my ATM card. They gave me a little money and they were poor, just so I could get back on the road and get back to Istanbul, and I sent them a check. I assume they got it years ago, some money or months when I got home. But that kind of one-on-one connection, the faces that I've seen over the years, that I didn't know the language, that's what lingers. I remember the pyramids and the Parthenon and all the beautiful places. When I look at the photos is the faces that I say oh yeah, that chickpea farmer I met in Jordan. I wonder what happened to her.

Speaker 2

You, it was just the faces that I say, oh yeah, that chickpea farmer I met in Jordan.

Speaker 3

I wonder what happened to her you can't take away. That's amazing. Yeah, I'm not from here, I'm from the island, I'm from Jamaica. But it's kind of similar to what you say, like you travel overseas Because a lot of times I've lived in America now for 17 years and I was amazed by how many people I've met here that haven't even left the state, the city that they were born. So they watch the news and they hear it on the news and they think, oh, I cannot get out of this bubble because if I do I'm going to get killed. And even people in the LGBTQIA plus community. Sometimes I'm telling them that places are not dangerous, but how dangerous it is in some of these countries, more than it is in some of these communities right here in the United States.

Speaker 2

Honestly, I'd rather walk through Kingston in the middle of the night than I would through East New York at two in the morning. So it's like we have our problems back here as well. So I totally get it, and it's true, I remember it's an antidote that I tell a lot only because I think it's very endemic of the American psyche in a way. This is years ago. I was at a shoot and I was traveling somewhere domestic obviously, because the story I'm about to tell maybe it was US to Vegas or something and I sat next to this lovely old couple. They were going to Vegas and they were very excited about it because it was one of their first big trips.

Speaker 2

And I had just gotten back from a trip somewhere in Europe. And we're talking I'm talking about how much I love London or wherever it was and they say, oh, we thought about going to Europe, but then a few years ago we've discovered Epcot Center instead. So we went to Epcot Center. We saw we saw France and England, germany one day, and we feel like we've done it. We don't feel like we need the passport. I think we're good. We're good to travel and there was no irony in it. These people simply felt that they had ticked the box of travel because they went to Orlando or whatever, saw like London World, and then came home and for them that was enough. And I think a lot of that is systemic, from people telling us it's dangerous out there, stay close to home. And also I think people, as you know, until you travel you don't know what you've missed.

Speaker 3

Exactly.

Speaker 2

Once you travel, you get the wanderlust, you get the itchy feet and then you can't stop. But there was this old couple, in the autumn of their years, who their great adventure was Epcot Center and now this big trip to Vegas, and I can't deny them. If they're happy, they're happy. No one needs to see the Parthenon.

Speaker 3

But once you do, you put that genie back in the bottle. Yep, that's absolutely true.

Speaker 1

So, Neil, have you always been out.

Speaker 2

Not when I was two or three months, no, it took me a while to come out. My parents God bless them, they're loving and 89, still alive and still very much in my lives. But they're very Catholic and that was a big issue coming up because Catholicism, of course, like so many of the Christian faiths, is so homophobic and the Pope would tell us that we're deviant simply by even thinking about it. So I didn't tell them until I was probably in my early 20s. So they'd already come out to my friends in Chicago where I was living at the time and when they came out they embraced it. But I think it was still a very slow thing for them to accept because it wasn't part of the world.

Speaker 2

They, my dear father, remember when I told him we were that he was the one I was most worried about because he's the patriarch of the family. And I remember when I told him his first question was after kind of like saying are you really? He goes well, that doesn't mean you like wear a bunch of leather and stuff, does it? His references were so small, right, he probably seen cruising on late night TV the night before and his whole idea was about some some sort of sleazy club in Hell's Kitchen.

Speaker 1

Right, wow, that was a long time ago.

Speaker 2

He's learned otherwise since then. So, no, it took me like many people had to struggle with. And, of course, when I did come up, it was almost a non-event, because those who still loved me and embraced me were still there and those who didn't disappeared, and I haven't missed them.

Speaker 1

Right. I asked that because I wonder, you mentioned being in some Islamic countries and other places like that and I just wondered what your experiences were as a gay man if you were out during that time.

Exploring LGBTQ+ History in Ancient Civilizations

Speaker 2

It's a very good question because usually, particularly when I'm on the job because, again, not only have I traveled there, I've worked for National Geographic, bbc Discovery, all those people going back and forth, back and forth representing the network and making films and I keep my sexuality sort of cloaked that way only because I'm on the company dime. But also you don't want to make waves and people can be still uncomfortable I have found over the years I have never really had any aggressive reaction to my sexuality, and certainly when I chat with my husband now, now we may not hold hands and smooch in the middle of Cairo, but you know, you look at us, it's pretty clear we're a couple. You know couples all sort of look and act alike after a while, right, it's kind of like you know those two are together. But what I have found over the years is it's less about me feeling repressed than them.

Speaker 2

What I have seen, particularly in the Muslim world, when I've traveled alone to when I'm over there doing a scout before I shoot, I will get hit on all the time by men, yeah, wow, in the park, and you know sometimes, and and very badly too. This is not a slick, this is not like your grinder. You know, this is a very awkward exchange where some guys come up doing a rather rude, lewd thing with his finger and it's because a couple of things they do that One is because I'm invisible I'm leaving in a week, there's a knock on effect of hitting on me and also they see us as much more decadent than the Islamic. Now they can't hit on the guy in the mosque, but they can hit on the guy who's just coming through for a week or two in Istanbul and then he's gone. Coming through for a week or two in Istanbul and then he's gone.

Speaker 2

And of course I never acted on it because Anani was so desperate, but the whole thing was just so almost comedically bad. But it underscores the fact that these people have no other outlet. These men and I don't know what it's like for lesbians, but certainly with men they have no other outlet but to try to have this anonymous quick sex in a park somewhere in Istanbul with some guy who's going to disappear. That is their release and that's so deeply sad and depressing because that's all they get and you can only imagine how much they're denying themselves. So I think it's easier for us as Americans or as Westerners, to go. These because they see us all separate.

Speaker 3

Right.

Speaker 2

All together and then we leave. Whether we're black or white, or gay or straight, we're still in many cases either walking ATMs in some cultures or we're just people that they want to, they want to roll out the red carpet for. But then we leave Right, leave that repression, and then that's unfortunately just as potent. It is now as it was 30 or 40 years ago when I first started traveling. Gay rights has not exactly evolved too much in that part of the world.

Speaker 3

Right, I'm going to make a comment and I'll ask you a question. So I was listening to TikTok, this lady. She interviews people on TikTok and, funny enough you say that because I was just talking to Dr Angelica about that. I think it was yesterday.

Speaker 3

She was interviewing this gay man and he said that most of his life, most of his sex partners are quote unquote straight men that just want to have sex with a man, and most of them are like oh, we just want to have sex with you, but we have our wives or girlfriend or whatever you. And he's saying that he probably had sex with more than 100 men that are straight, presenting very macho men in the world. You will see them with your families, but after the sex he cannot even speak to them on the street because they don't want other people to know that they actually have any affiliation with gay men. So that's very much something that's very prevalent in society and especially in a lot of foreign countries, especially those foreign countries that are not open, and especially in the African-American community here in the United States.

Speaker 2

And I wonder how many? You say you know 100 straight guys, but I wonder if they live in a different culture, how many of them would no longer be straight but gay If I was straight now, because it's safer Right, but of course they lived in an area like Brooklyn or maybe Atlanta or whatever, or maybe just in a culture that's more embracing they would, they would truly come out and they wouldn't have to play that game or wouldn't have to sneak around or be duplicitous to a wife and to themselves.

Speaker 2

So you know, I'm always. Sexuality is so fluid, it's hard to know exactly what people are. If it's because that's who they are, that's because that's all they can be.

Speaker 3

Right, definitely so. During your research as an historian, what are some of the myths that you have discovered about ancient times, about queer people?

Speaker 2

in most cases, certainly in the ancient world, like egypt. Uh, greece and rome were my three sort of happy places. I've done most of my films. It was much more embracing and much more open. There is a site that I invite anyone to go to egypt to see straight or gay and it's one of my favorite places and anytime I go there I always take friends there. There's a place called sakara. Have you been to egypt, either of you?

Speaker 2

no sakara is a place it's known more for. Have you ever seen that step pyramid? It's a pyramid that kind of has this. It's the oldest pyramid ever. It's four and a half thousand years old, made by by pharaoh doser, and in the fourth dynasty goes way back. It's not that pyramid, but around there there is a necropolisqara, and the necropolis was the graveyard for the elite Egyptians of the time. We're talking four and a half thousand years ago.

Speaker 2

Anyone who was buried there this was prime real estate. You know, the three of us could never get anywhere near that place unless we were the kings or queens or officials that are that are within the court, and within there there is a tomb called the Tomb of the Brothers. It was discovered in 1964 and renovated. I'll tell you why the name is so ridiculous in a moment, but when you walk into the tomb of the brothers it's very, very clear. A gay couple is living very much out in the open, and these two guys went, were training together, and the walls are the most joyously painted frescoes of two guys holding hands, sitting on lotuses, watching farmers grow their crops, touching nose to nose, which is the ancient egyptian form of kissing. These are two gay men who, though it doesn't say gay anywhere clearly, you know it's a same-sex couple that not only would they bury together, which is remarkable itself, but keep in mind they were buried under the understanding of the pharaoh and the elite. So you would. It's not happenstance that this tomb is here. The pharaoh knew who they were. They sanctioned this couple, which means they they were obviously comfortable with the same sex relationship. It's called the tomb of the brothers because by the time, 1964, our own world came along, there was no way this could possibly be a gay couple, certainly not back then. So they assumed their two brothers and they were just buried together, side by side. There's even a more ridiculous theory where they claim that they're siamese twins and that's why they're nose to nose, because they literally cannot extract their bodies from one another. People are bending over backwards in their homophobia to explain what is clearly on the wall. They didn't even have to say like gay, gay couple. You know, these are two men who are in love and there they are for eternity, under the total support of the political and religious state. Any tomb back then was not just political, it was spiritual. The gods accepted this. Wow.

Speaker 2

I'm writing a series of novels about a TV crew, much like I was, two of whom are gay, that go in the past, and they meet these people. So the Tomb of the Brothers. In the first book they're the ones that open the door, the portal that they can allow them to come and go. So I'm taking all the stuff I know about history and I'm having a fun, fantastical spin on it and I meet gay characters in the past. In the second book that comes out November 11th, primetime Pompeii, they go back to ancient Pompeii on the eve of the eruption in 79 AD. And the two characters, jared, who comes out in the first book he's a corn-fed kid from Kansas who's afraid to find his own identity, and his best friend is Kara, the black camera woman from the Bronx who's a lesbian and kind of helps him come out, and they're thick as thieves. So in the first book it's Jared's chance to fall in love.

Speaker 2

In the second book, kara falls in love with this woman named Julia Felix, who was a real-life character. We don't know if she was lesbian or not, but she was the most powerful woman in Pompeii. She had the greatest villa and she lived alone. She didn't need men, so I use her as an example of someone just didn't, simply didn't need. You know the male patriarch society, but the other characters I have in there are based on some new research. There's actually an article in the CNN yesterday about this. If you Google it it'll come right up. You know what the plaster cast are. Have you been to Pompeii?

Speaker 1

No.

Speaker 2

You know the plaster casts, so you know Pompeii, right, pompeii was wiped out by Mount Vesuvius very quickly. It's in Italy, near the Bay of Naples, and it happened so fast that the pyroclastic flow, this hot gas of 1,500 degrees, basically melted people on the spot. So much so that when they were digging and excavating, thousand years later the modern day excavators would come across hollows in the ground and they soon realized they are the impressions of bodies. Wow, bodies have melted away, but the earth has their image of them reaching out, holding up, holding babies, clutching the last of them. So they poured plaster in there and then chipped it around and they pulled the plaster out. And now you can see these bodies in their last moment and you go to the Museum of Pompeii and you see this, and it's horrific to see them because they're all in the moment of death. But there is one there and again, not unlike the tomb of the brothers, with a misnomer, they call the two maidens.

Speaker 2

And it is two people embracing at the last minute, when, when, in a thing called the crypto porticus, which is a, which is a uh, a tunnel that took you to the marina, the last exit. If you wanted to get out, at the very end, you'd have to get to the marina, get on a boat and try to get out to the bay of naples. Most didn't. By that point, it was too late. These people were trying to get there and when the when the pyroclastic flow caught up with them, they held each other tight and they are frozen in an embrace for 2,000 years. One has their head on the other's chest and they're just holding each other very lovingly as they go out and they call the two maidens because, again, they assume it was a mother and a daughter. Recent DNA and CAT scans have proved that's not the case. They're both men, they're not related and they're between 20 and 30 years old.

Speaker 2

Now, we don't know. We can't document sexuality and behavior, but when I look at these plaster casts, these look like lovers. This is not like a shopkeeper and like, you know, the blacksmith holding each other at the end of the road. These are people that are looking at each other. So I made in the character. So one of the main reasons my filmmaker and crew goes back in prime time pompeii is to find out the identity of this gay couple. Each of the books is about them going into the past and celebrating lost gays. Wow, that premise of all the books wow now.

Speaker 2

Now they can time travel, they say we will time travel for the network and all the bullshit that you outforced on it. But each film has to have gay, positive characters that we can celebrate and bring back to the modern world. That's the premise of the series.

Speaker 1

That's cool. I love sci-fi, so I love that that element is in there. So I heard that Primetime Pompeii is coming out November 11th. And what's the first one? The?

Speaker 2

First one's called Primetime Travelers, and they go back to ancient Egypt in that one.

Speaker 1

Okay, very cool.

Evolution of Sexuality and Christianity

Speaker 2

And then I'm writing the third one right now, and it's Primetime Troy. They go back and they meet Patrick Liss and Achilles, the two great gay lovers from the Trojan War, and so, once again, I want to make sure I bring in both LGBTQ, male-female relationships of any kind in all the books with a positive spin. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3

And then, in terms of evolution, what are your thoughts on evolution of the LGBTQIA plus community as an historian, looking at an ancient history of queer people and looking at where we are today?

Speaker 2

for looking at where we are today it's tricky because in many regards, look, you can't look back and say times are better here or there, because for every advance they had to step back. I mean, you could probably love whoever you wanted to in ancient Rome, but then you might be dead at 30 by some disease that we now have penicillin to wipe out. So you know, with the good comes the bad, but in terms of sexuality, they didn't have a name for it. The Egyptians and the Greeks did not even have a name for it, because it was just something you did In Greece, it was a rite of passage.

Speaker 2

You know, eros, the idea of a lot of men would take a younger lover as a tutor and then at a certain point they would decide do I stay with the tutor or do I go on? Some went on to have a healthy, straight relationship. Some, I assume, stayed with their older lover. But the idea of having sex, the idea of two men having sex, was in no way frowned upon. It was even celebrated. It was woven into the fabric of Greek culture, egyptian as well. We know very little about Egypt. They don't talk about sexuality. Rome too.

Speaker 2

Rome started to get a little more callous about some of the limitations In ancient Rome. For example, they say Julius Caesar was gay, hadrian had a beautiful lover. But they definitely started getting some sort of stereotypes where if you were the passive partner, if you're on bottom, then it was far less accepted than the top, you know. So those things started creeping in there. Where it all ended was Christianity.

Speaker 2

I hate to say Christianity came in the 4th, 5th century. They went after all the pagan religions, like the Greco-Roman religions in India and Mesopotamia, and they brought in the heavy duty and the oppression that's still there in many cases with Christianity and that wiped it out. You would be burnt at the stake for having a same relationship in the sixth or seventh century on, because they were reacting to the decadent heathen pagan. And there was one more thing they could throw on the bonfire. So I would much rather be gay in 100 BC than I would probably in 2000 AD, depending on where I live.

Speaker 2

But now of course we didn't have gay marriage and things like that. But then at that point they didn't really have marriage. The Egyptians didn't have a name for it. They literally tied a knot which is where that word comes from and then you can decide who you're married and that's it, and there's no legal ramifications for it. So it's very loose in terms of who you shack up with, but in terms of sexuality that goes way back. I can well imagine there were gay cavemen and cavewomen too. It's just that we don't have a historical record for that.

Speaker 3

Right, right, it's very interesting that you brought up. Christianity changed the sexuality evolution, and the reason why I say that is because if you look at all the religions that people are told that are oppressed, in others it's more so. Oh, it'slims, it's jews, you know, and those religions. But christianity is so accepted by most of the worlds and most of the countries that are homophobic, christianity is widespread, right. So it's really nice that you brought it up, because I grew up very much christian in a pentecostal church in the country in Jamaica, and when I came out at 15, it was a big thing for my parents to say okay, you got to go to church so they can pray it out.

Speaker 2

Squeeze that evil out of you.

Speaker 3

Yeah, and I literally believe that with prayer from the Christian pastor, it will eventually fade away. It never did, you know, and it's just to see how the Christian religion is used to oppress minorities at all times. You know, and I'm not trying to get too religious and you may agree or disagree, but Christianity was one of the tools that they used to enslave Black people coming from Africa as well, so it's so amazing to me to see how Black countries embrace Christianity and Black people on the whole embrace Christianity and the minority is like queer people say, oh, I'm a Christian.

Speaker 3

I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking people for believing what they believe, but it's such an oppressing religion that we tend to give a pass, compared to someone that's a Muslim.

Speaker 2

I mean the Muslims too. I mean they're very repressive too and my Islamic friends, if they were on this call, they would tell you even Jewish too. All the Western religions can be oppressive. I think Christianity A, because we know it, we live that world and there's so much of it there. But it's true, I think, because of the Spanish Inquisition, because of slavery and all the things that Western culture was doing for so long, we can see how awful and how cynical Christianity was used by the leaders, by the church and everything else, the Pope and everyone on down. So it has such a bloody ugly history.

Speaker 2

I mean, I fell out of Christianity very early. I was bored before. I became even aware that it was evil in terms of the Catholicism, in terms of how they treat a sexuality, because it wasn't touching me. But I certainly have nothing to do with it now. My parents again at 89 years old. God bless them. They love it, they accept me and my husband, and it still informs their life. So I can't dismiss the organized religion out of hand. If it works for somebody, that's fine. But you won't find me walking into a church unless it's a funeral or a wedding. It's just I'm done and dusted with Christianity.

A Journey Through Sexuality and Creativity

Speaker 3

Right, yeah, and you mentioned other religions, which is exactly so, but we were taught growing up as Christian myself and others that I know were taught that every other religion is bad except for this one, but we just didn't know what we thought christianity was how bad ours was you start researching and start educating yourself on the history of christianity, and that's when I started like this is definitely not true what they're telling people, and then, if you even look at some of the scriptures in the bible, it can be very dark yeah, of course it be an eye for an eye and everything else.

Speaker 2

It's not just sexuality, but of course, all the people who use the Bible as an example for why the three of us should go right to hell. They're interpreting that so incorrectly. People are not talking about oh by the fact that you have same-sex relationships. It's just they're using that for a context of first century Judea, what everything else is. It's impossible to look at that and say this is strictly homophobic, but it's been used as a tool by the religious right for so long that people just assume automatically that if you dare be interested in the same sex, then you are going to a fiery pit. There's a documentary that I did and I wrote another book which I didn't publish, which I won't get into here, but it was more modern day. I went to Iran and you may not know this I bet you don't because very few do but Iran is the sex change capital of the world, paid for by the Ayatollah really.

Speaker 2

Why do you think that is?

Speaker 1

I don't know.

Speaker 2

This is the first to me it is not enlightenment, that's exactly what we were talking about. It is such a sin to have sex with the same sex that if you snip and snap and you become the other gender, then you're no longer in a front to Allah.

Speaker 2

So, they will pay for you to have the sex change so you won't be quite so decadent. So then you can at least have a life and people apply for sex change operation. It's not easy doing it. You're still sort of dissed by the population. The government will pay for you to save your soul.

Speaker 1

Wow, that is deep.

Speaker 3

It is very deep. Yeah, wow, I'm going to have to do some research on it.

Speaker 1

That is amazing.

Speaker 2

Google that It'll come up. I met a woman named Maryam that wrote one of my books, who had this sex change and it still wasn't easy living in Tehran, but at least she could be the person she wanted to and she could be with the person she loved. So is it enlightened in that, rather than throwing you in prison and stoning you, that will give you a chance to be the real sex you want to be? Of course, the argument is like I'm gay, but I don't want to be a woman. I like being with dudes and I like being with dudes and I don't want to play those games. So people automatically assume that you're just in the wrong skin. No, it's a little more complex than that. But is it enlightened and they help you along? Or is it even more awful where it's like you have to change who you are or you literally will go in Evin prison, which is the most notorious prison in Tehran, for the rest of your days? You know, I leave that question to you.

Speaker 1

So I feel like I've heard of at least a couple of religions where they are very open to sexuality and even looking at people who are trans as being, like, more enlightened or something of that nature. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Speaker 2

Oh, I can't speak for today's religions because I don't follow them. I can certainly tell you that one of the things I did for my first book, primetime Traveler, is because I very much wanted to get the gay market and talk about gay history. I have a series of videos called Gay Underscore History on TikTok where I did about 20 or 30 of them about ancient history and gays. And one of the things that I researched that I didn't even know myself until I dug it was the early Mesopotamian culture which was rivaled ancient Egypt, very, very old. They had a third gender and they were celebrated. So if you were hermaphroditic or if you were just even just gender fluid, then you become the priest, you become sort of venerated, and those are the ones who became the priest for Ishtar and those kinds of people. They were celebrated.

Speaker 2

So the idea of a third gender was accepted and venerated by the Mesopotamian, babylonian religions in a way that again, obviously later on it was wiped out. So again, I think there's that sense of just accepting sexuality earlier on in history than there is now. And again, when I say Christianity, it came first, so it probably was the worst, but Islam was right after it and it didn't do any great favors for same-sex lifestyle either. There might be religions today, and certainly I think there's offshoots of Christianity and Islam that are much more accepting. I think particularly in environments like we live in the West and urban environments where they want to get the people who are not being repressed. But I don't know if there's any religion today, the classic religions, that are so embracing of that. I think you have to do about 3,000 years to find them, wow.

Speaker 1

So what made you want to go from working with some of the major networks or National Geographic or Discovery, to branching out on your own? I think because I'd done it for so long.

Speaker 2

I made my first film in like 1995 or something, or National Geographic's discovery to branching out on your own, I think, because I'd done it for so long. I made my first film in like 1995 or something and I could have said a thousand hours of TV. I was a network exec. I was very fortunate. I've been there when they've opened tombs and temples. I've been to 70 plus countries. I haven't seen a wonderful part of the world, but I got a little tired of the format and I still work in television as a freelancer. I'm working for History Channel now doing some scripting, but no longer at the networks.

Speaker 2

I wanted to tell stories in a different way. I wanted to be challenged in a different way and, quite frankly, I wanted to make shit up. When you're a documentary filmmaker, it's all about the footnotes and all about getting right. I wanted to see what ancient Egypt was like when it was new, not when it was a bunch of bleached stones in the desert. I wanted to imagine what it was like when King Tut walked through there with his parade and have someone with their camera proof. I just wanted to blend those two worlds. The only way to do that, of course, is fiction. Right? Yes, I wrote a couple other books first.

Speaker 2

I wrote one that was all about ancient Egypt first and I couldn't sell it because maybe it was a little too hermetic. People couldn't relate to it as much because it's about tomb robbers in ancient Egypt. And then I wrote the one with the Iranian transsexual. It was a road trip.

Speaker 2

And then I finally hit on this comedic thing and I think that's been my sweet spot because I can bring out the humor that I also couldn't bring in documentaries. I can skewer the networks and the people that I know, the ancient alien crowds, all these you know cheesy TV shows, but then also take people back to the evil Pompeii, which, if you read Prime Time Pompeii, I promise you all those details are accurate as much as it can be. I did my homework and I love taking that stuff and making an adventure yarn, turning it an Indiana Jones yarn, adventure yarn, turning it an indiana jones yarn. I'll be able to take this stuff and just put in a blender and throw all my experiences together. It's just, it's been so inspiring for me creatively. It's opened up a whole new chapter of my creativity that I didn't have before because I've been doing the same thing for almost 30 years.

Speaker 1

Wow, it was time to challenge myself yeah, so you mentioned your husband. Did you meet him on one of these trips? How did you two meet?

Speaker 2

Oh no, we met cute. I met him in Chicago when I was getting my film school there. I went to Columbia College, chicago. This is 99. So we just set up our 25th and I remember to paint a picture of like how far back it was I don't know how old you ladies are, but 1999, you know, I was already freelancing and writing for a local production company making stuff for history or something back then.

Speaker 2

But I had this newfangled machine called a laptop. So I would go to the coffee shop and I would write on my laptop. There was a place called Boys Town in Chicago where all the boys went and I figured, well, I'm single and I can write anywhere this is before internet, mind you and just writing it, and I'll just go kind of show off and, you know, wear my tight shirts, and maybe I meet a man as well. My husband would tell me it was a cold, snowy day and he walked down the street. He looked in the window and says that guy's cute, but he's so freaking pretentious. So talk about ancient history, right? Yeah, carl came in anyways, and this thing called Caribou Coffee was a chain of I don't know if they have them anymore, there's a bunch of these. They still have them, you remember them.

Speaker 2

And they had a fireplace in the middle and Carl was sitting by the fireplace and, mind you, this is January and just Chicago, so a fireplace is a good place to sit and he's sitting over there and I'm on my corner typing away and I look up as this gorgeous young black man looking back at me, and every time he looks at me he hides under his book, hides again. And not only was it I think it was beautiful but the reason I knew I could go up and talk to him was he was reading an Egyptology book, a British archaeologist who died in like 1926, called E Wallace Budge. Nobody reads Budge unless you're at Harvard and you have to. And here's this beautiful, young, 23-year-old Black man in a caribou coffee and boy's done reading it. All right, this is a golden opportunity I can't let slip by.

Speaker 2

So, I talked to him and I said this is the best pickup line ever. I say, oh, I noticed you're reading Budge.

Embracing Fearlessness and Creativity

Speaker 1

I'm going budge. Wow, congratulations on 25 years. That's amazing. That's like 170. Yeah, that's a beautiful love story. I'm curious what advice would you give others about the secret to longevity, or is there a secret?

Speaker 2

I think it's whether it's gay or straight. I think it's just understanding trust. I think just accepting the ups and downs and foibles. We've had times where he wasn't working and he's a journalist so he's gone through tough times too. When I work my books you know you have to just accept somebody but you also have to kind of recognize your relationship.

Speaker 2

But one of the few fights we ever really had in 25 years early on about money maybe, but the only one I remember really had in the last seven or eight years was all on me because when I first started writing my own book if you've ever written you know you get on rabbit holes, everything disappears, but you and your laptop or whatever you're writing on.

Speaker 2

So every saturday I'll give them all my saturdays I get, get up and I write until one or two until I'm so knackered I couldn't anymore. Then theoretically, Carl and I would go out and have lunch or something and that was the middle of my first book and he said a few things where he gave me my space and he went out and then he came back at like three in the afternoon or something, expecting to go out for dinner and he had told me walk the dog and do the dishes and then be ready for lunch at two. The dishes, then the dog, were both neglected and it was a big open pizza box on the floor where I had eaten. His patience got to a point where like, all right, I applaud you for trying to do something else, but you have to be in a relationship too, and I remember that was one of the few times I recognized oh yeah, it has to be a partnership.

Speaker 1

Yeah, it has to be a partnership.

Speaker 2

It has to be a partnership, because if it's not, then the scenes start to show.

Speaker 1

Nice. So I do follow you on TikTok. I've been enjoying some of the clips that you have where you're unveiling different relationships and people who were gay and it's just. It's really a cool way to kind of digest history and to share information, to have it that way. So I hope that many other people go and follow you at gay underscore history and I think there you have a link to like all of your work that you've done.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I mean my books. If you go to Amazon, neil Laird, my two books will come up, or my website and then my TV stuff. If you're curious about my credits, you can go to IMDB, look for Neil Laird and you'll say oh, he did that thing.

Speaker 3

So, neil, what's one thing you want to share with our listeners that we haven't spoke about?

Speaker 2

I mean clearly. I think about travel and creativity and sexuality. Don't wait, just do it now. If you're on the fence, just do it now. You're going to feel so much better when you do. You're going to feel better when you come out. You're going to feel better when you decide. I'm going to take that chance and I'm not going to go to Epcot Center this year. I'm actually going to fly to London and see the real Tower Bridge, or you know, I've been talking about writing a book, you know, for 10 years. Friggin hell, I'm gonna do it this time. You just have to kind of just be afraid not to fail.

Highlighting Queer History With Neil Laird

Speaker 2

I remember the main reason I wrote the books when I did. It was 2016 when I started writing, and two things happened in 2016 that got me off the pot. One is I turned 50 and I realized okay, neil, you're no longer a spring chicken. And the other one was my favorite creative muse, the one, the one creative force that always informed me growing up was actually a musician, wasn't even a writer, filmmaker was david bowie huge bowie freak since I could remember back in the 70s. And the thing about bowie if you know, he made like 27 albums and he was fearless. Every album he reinvented himself and if he failed he got back up and he went from r&b to jungle to industrial and he just kept trying. He kept doing what he wanted to.

Speaker 2

And I remember when he died in january of 16 the same year I turned uh 50. I remember reading his obituary which of course I knew ford, because every one of his album I'd be the first one to buy it. But I remember reading the obituary which of course I knew ford, because every one of his album I'd be the first one to buy it. But I remember reading the obituary and saying, if david bowie could reinvent himself 27 times, little old neil laird can do it once. And that kind of got me at the pause like, all right, I'm going to jump, I'm going to be a little fearless and I'm going to try and do what I can. If I fail, I fail, but I won't look back and wonder why didn't I?

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

If there's anything I can impart on them, it's like don't ruminate do.

Speaker 3

Nice, that's very inspiring, yes, very inspiring, neil. Okay, listeners, there you have it, the famous Neil Lared, a husband, a historian, a writer, a world traveler focusing on queer history. Neil is working to highlight the similarity and evolution of the queer community. Please go to Gay History on TikTok and follow Neil to learn a lot more about the evolution and the history of the queer community. Thank you, neil, for being on A Queer Understanding. It was a pleasure speaking with you.

Speaker 2

Absolute pleasure. Lovely meeting you both. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 3

Thank you.