Pride, Protest & Activism: Why Queer History Still Matters

Hey y’all — it’s Peppermint, and welcome back to Queer 101, the podcast where we talk queer history, queer culture, queer books, and the stories we definitely didn’t learn in school.

Hugh is on his book tour (go grab My Bad for your summer reading list!), so this week it’s just me. And since it’s Pride Month, I wanted to revisit some of our most powerful conversations about activism, trans rights, and the queer leaders who shaped our movement.

Because Pride didn’t start with a party. 

It started with a protest.

In this episode, I reflect on:

• Why some queer stories get erased — even in the age of social media
• The legacy of Marsha P. Johnson and why her full story matters
• The case of trans women like Alice Correa and how quickly names disappear from headlines
• What activism really means — is it marching? organizing? living openly? all of the above?
• Why queer activism must stay connected to working-class struggles
• The truth about anti-trans rhetoric, especially around trans women in sports
• And how capitalism influences politics, sports, and even our movements

As we head toward the anniversary of Stonewall, this episode is about remembering where we came from, honoring the activists who fought before us, and recommitting to the work ahead.

Because our history is not optional. It’s essential.

Happy Pride. Stay proud. Stay loud. And keep fighting the good fight.

Follow us at:

• @peppermint247
• @hughoryan
• @pridehousemedia

Write to us at:

• questions@queer101podcast.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Hey y'all, welcome to Queer 101.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

I'm Peppermint, and I'm Do the Historian. And we're here to bring you all things queer history that you didn't learn in school.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

This is a podcast where we dive deep into queer culture, books, and the queer experience, past, present, and future. From the history that shaped us to the culture that keeps us thriving, we have got it all covered.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Grab a seat and let's turn a light on queer history because these stories demand to be heard and must be celebrated.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Welcome to Queer 101. Class is now in action. Hey y'all, welcome back to another Queer 101, the podcast, where we talk about any and everything under the sun, including queer art, queer culture, and queer literature. I'm Peppermint, and Hugh, the historian, is off on his book tour. So remember, it's just me this week. Now, my bad, Hugh's new amazing book is out now and the perfect book for you to pick up on your summer reading list. But before we dive in, I just want to take a moment to wish you all a happy Pride Month. Now, I know that Pride means different things to different people, and whatever it means to you, whether you know it or not, it started with activism. Period. This week we dug through our archives to do a little clip show and create some highlights from our best moments, past, present, and future. Uh so that we know where we came from, where we are, and where we're going. So here we go. I was sort of going back and thinking about the uh the video. I can't remember the name of the woman. I actually shared about her a couple of weeks ago. Uh trans woman who from um from South America who was uh abducted by ICE enforcers uh on video, uh heartbreakingly. And I just remember thinking I I hope I want to know more about her story. Uh a report came out recently that she was uh that she was reporting, you know, uh uh abuse in the facility that she was in, mistreatment. Uh, you know, that's probably like the most sort of like neutralized language that the news has put out. I'm sure it's more than that.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

Um this is Alice Correa, right? Alice Correa, for those of you listening at home, I believe that's her name. Brazilian woman. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Brazilian, yeah, she's from Brazil, she's trans. And was taken on video. Uh, you know, her the people that she was with, her companions that she was with, filmed her, being snatched out of a car very brutally. Uh and so that's not quite the same thing, of course, as Marcia B. Johnson, but it's n you know, at all. But it's we hear this is for so long, the only thing I knew about Marsha B. Johnson was that she her body was found in the river. Right. You know, even before I knew more about I knew she was this woman who was reported to have thrown the first proverbial or literal brick at Stonewall, and then her body was found in the river, and that's it.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

You know? You know, it it's incredible because I think when I think about it, I think like, oh, in my head, I sometimes think like, okay, well, it's the past, and you know, we didn't have cell phones and we didn't have instantaneous communications, and so things could get lost. But you know, you bring up the the case of Alice Correa, and it's like that's happening right now, that's on video, and so many people don't know her name, and so many people don't know what she has gone through. And it it sort of says to me, like, wow, it really enforces that it's not just a process of history where some stories get lost and some stories get uplifted.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

So if you want another great read, please pick up Marsha by Tourmaline. Now, next up, Hugh and I discuss what defines activism, the truths, and also some of the misconceptions. Take a listen.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

I think that we often get this stereotype in the media about like, you know, the queer community as represented by rich gay white men who own their apartments in the West Village and then go to circuit parties, but actually the majority of the queer community is less affluent than the average American. So I think any any issue that touches on quality of life, on the working class, on healthcare, on social safety nets, all of these should be seen as queer and trans issues. And I think that's honestly a good place to start our conversation today. What do you think activism is, right? What is queer activism? Is it is it defined by its intent? Is it only queer activism if you're working on like a specifically queer cause for a specifically queer movement? Can just how you live your life and how you bring your queerness into a space where it's like you said, maybe not expected or accepted? Is that activism? What's your definition?

SPEAKER_01 4:55

I don't know that I have a definition. I think activism is really just, I mean, besides advocacy, you know, uh, but it could it it can, you know. I I I I don't I don't know that I have a a a clear definition. I probably did years ago. Uh, but it's, you know, and back then, back in the day, I probably would have said that activism is just like, you know, marching for the rights, marching for rights, things like that. Um, and now I think that activism is probably whatever it needs to be, but it has to connect to, and this is sort of me coming into this. It's this is not a revelation for for the ages, but I think activism needs to in the current modern context, activism needs to be a working class um laborer's mission. You know, it has to be. I guess there are political activists who who advocate on behalf of um corporate interests and foreign interests. Uh but, you know, so I guess that's a type of activism. But I think it's a bad type of activism. The just activism um is the one that is connected to the needs of working class folks. What about you?

SPEAKER_00 6:19

Well, you know, it's interesting you bring up that point about like what you used to thought versus what you might think now. Uh for a long time when I was younger, I like you, I think was very much like activism is being out in the streets and yelling. It's protests, it's um, you know, uh kind of like creative things like when Act Up put a giant condom over the house of Senator Jesse Helms because he was holding up uh HIV and AIDS funding. I saw those things as activism. And I saw what I think at the time I would have called like community organizing as not the same, you know, working together to like get community meetings, to get people to know each other, to, you know, uh those consciousness-raising groups where you'd sit and talk about your issues. I would have said that that was something different. I think as I've gotten older, maybe similar to you, it's it's my view on what activism is has gotten wider. A lot more things seem like activism to me now and like um attempting to make change. I think one of the things I really think about a lot comes to me from Sarah Shulman, who's an incredible queer author and activist, uh, who just wrote a book this year or last year called The Fantasy and Necessity of Um Solidarity. And she talks a lot about the need for activism to be effective. Not that you always win. We never always win. We don't know what's going to win, we don't know what's going to be effective necessarily. But that if we don't concentrate on making change, if at the end of the day we don't evaluate what we've done to say, like, are we going somewhere? Whether that's making uh legislative change or it's change in our personal lives or in our relationships with each other, if we're not actually affecting the issue we're organizing around, at some point does the organizing take the place of making change? You know, I think about that a lot. I see people protesting in so many different ways right now, and it's so exciting. Uh and I think that for me, all I ask is like, do you have goals that I broadly agree with? And do you seem to want to actually make change? Are you committed to getting things done, not just kind of like a symbolic work that maybe you don't even know what the symbol leads to the change? That's for me the big, big defining moment on activism. And I think when you look historically, like we see in Queer Life so much of this, so many different kinds of activists. You know, we have the Stonewalls and before Stonewall, the Black Cat protest and the protests at Cooper's Donuts out in LA, and the reminder days in Philly, where people, you know, protested wearing very nice posters and very nice suits saying that homosexuals should not be denied jobs, you know, in the 1960s, that kind of in the streets activism. And then we have, you know, the entire panopoly of activism around the AIDS movement, how many people were in the streets, but also how many people were going back home to their towns and talking to them about like, how do we live? You know, how do we make it possible for someone with AIDS to live in this town where maybe there are no social services and maybe they need to get food and support and medicine from people close to them? It's just, I don't know. I look back on our history and I think there is so much in it to draw from so many models, uh, you know, and it's people like Tormaline who give us that bio of Marsha P. Johnson so that we really see both every kind of activism that she did in the streets, in her life, in her art. And that's what really inspires me these days, are looking at these broad activists from our history and asking, like, what can we learn from them?

SPEAKER_01 9:50

One of the many areas that are at the forefront these days is the senseless argument about trans people, trans women in sports. And this is a very nuanced conversation, but an important one, especially as we discuss all types of activism and what drives some of this anti-trans rhetoric. So buckle up, y'all.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

Talking about activism, I mean, this is a place where I think athletes need to be speaking up, and I'm not talking about trans athletes who are already doing so much to just make it in their sports as activists. This is a place where cis athletes really need to be talking about how this is going to control their bodies, destroy their careers, destroy their sports. They have a platform. And I'm I'm really hoping that more of them stand up. I know particularly straight athletes really need to come to the fore here. I know it's hard for gay athletes who are not trans to step forward on this issue, and for a lot of reasons, but like when the biggest voices out there are like fucking Martina Never Tolova being a hateful turf, where are the other athletes? You know, I want to see more of them stepping up.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

And I think that's when it that goes back to what we were saying in the in the previous episode where, you know, when when it comes to people's activism and um, you know, how they get involved and when they get involved, a lot of times it has to be something that impacts their life directly. And it can be on either side. It can impact their life, meaning something taken away from them and they want to fight for it, and then they realize that their their needs uh are aligned with other people that might not be like them, but they're like, hey, you know, I'm not like you, but we both need this thing healthcare, the ability to play in the sports, whatever it is, let's fight together because we're stronger together. There's that impacting their life that can be an inspiration, but then there's also the impact of the life of the threat of loss of access to jobs and things like that, which stops them from speaking out because that that athlete might not want to speak out against the IOC if they know that they have a scholarship that's in partnership with Nike or or whatever it's gonna be, and they're like, Well, I better not say anything because I'm gonna lose my my sponsorship. Um, and so you know, I think that that is the other piece of how it can impact people's lives in a negative way, in my in my opinion, and stop them from being involved and stop them speaking out and doing what's right. And sometimes in some cases, get them to be to join the bandwagon, right? And and and and you know, so I I do think that that is I hope that that would lead us to the conversation of maybe we don't need to have money in sports the way that we do. Maybe athletes don't need to get paid five billion dollars to do something if they can't, if they're going to help further uh uh like a political regime uh by proxy, you know what I mean? Maybe we're there shouldn't be so much money in politics. There shouldn't be because capitalism is entering every single arena, every single um industry, and corrupting it. Yeah, the the the the uh cream. Um cream uh yeah, but I've I've not heard it like that, but it's cream um is uh is not um the the purpose of these industries. The purpose of sports should be to play the sports, the joy of the sports. The purpose of the sports should not be to become a billionaire. The purpose of politics should not be to become a billionaire. The purpose of any of these things should not be to become a billionaire, it should be to do whatever the thing is, the impact of the intention of the thing is to do.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Yeah, but I think so much of that has gotten lost under capitalism, and especially now in this age of like venture capitalism, where it's like they buy entire industries to ask how can we make a profit off this while like killing as many grandmas in healthcare as possible, you know?

SPEAKER_01 13:26

Thank you everyone for listening and watching today. Uh listen, we wanted to drop this as we head into the anniversary of Stonewall at the end of the month to give you all a sense of what it really took to get us where we are and what it takes to keep us fighting for our rights. So thank you again for watching and listening. Please share this and subscribe. And remember, darling, please just leave a comment. Let us know, let me know what were some of your favorite moments from episodes past. Also, let me know what are some of your favorite pride moments that you may have experienced. Did you have a wild pride one year and you want to share it? We'd love to hear it. And also just remember as a community, we're gonna have to pull together. However, you identify, whatever community means to you, it's evolving. But it's definitely all inclusive. And lastly, remember that Hugh and I will be here every other week for the summer, just for the summer. And then we'll be back to our regularly scheduled weekly show in September. So in the meantime, please like this, share, subscribe to my YouTube if that's where you're watching it. And happy and safe Pride, y'all. Keep fighting the good fight. We'll see you out there. Thank you so much for joining us today.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

This podcast is part of Pride House Media, hosted by us, Peppermint and Cube, produced and edited by Josh Rosenzweig with original music composed by Nell Balavan.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

If you enjoyed this episode, then don't forget to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast. And while you're there, leave us a rating and a review. It really helps others discover the show.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

You can stay connected and join the conversation by following us at Peppermint 247 or write to us at questions at queer101podcast.com.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

Thank you for listening. And remember, our history is your history. Stay proud, stay curious, and we'll see you next time on Queer One One.