American Experience; Stonewall Uprising; Interview with Martin Boyce, 1 of 4

We're growing up in the newer kid. What was your perception of homosexuality? Did you think about it, how did you feel inside? Yes, because I had cousins, because Jackie and Beatrice, they were 10 years older than me. And they had a car sometimes. And when we were bored, they were very interesting. And they would say, well, let's take a little more and you see the faggots. And they would take me out at night. I would get in the back of the car. They would go to the gay sections to show me all the different faggots. Or let's take a little more, I see the hoors. And we go see the prostitute areas. So I mean, and also I lived on 43rd and 2nd Avenue, which was very close to Times Square.

So there was no way I didn't know. And they were neighborhood gays, too. So in the evening, he said it as a summer incentive. Where your cousins would take you to all the sites to see the faggots on top? There was a thing to do. What did you do? Well, we would just say, let's take more. And you go see the faggots. We had the car. And then I would get in the back of the car. And then they would say, well, we're going to go see faggots. And they always knew exactly where to see the right faggots that were like in drag. And really amazing things to see. Little did they know I was clocking all this. So at the time of pubes, they knew where to go. Even some areas like the, you know, they say they do it in Central Park, too. That's where I came out. So did that mean that you didn't say that? It's one thing about the frame. On the far side, it's too dark. We're getting like, it's very dark. It's not like the extension for this case. What do you think? I'm not concerned at all. You're not. I'm not either. The only thing is I wonder if we want to see more window where it should be.

Well, I'm over to you, but I don't want to try that. Yes, if you can move a lot. So I want to. Oh. It's an empty frame. Yeah, I do move a lot. Oh, that's a lot. I think it would be your natural self-sum. There's plenty of that, like, you're looking on angle. Yeah, I think so. I just had to say it before I go. OK, so you're talking 50s, right? Like, what was coming out in 50s, like? Well, it was also because my, see, my mother was in invalid. And my father was very liberal, so my being louder or coming out was associated with my mother's illness. It was, I wasn't labeled gay, just different. And that was a good cover. Because it would be, like, I would not paint the house. My sister would paint the house with my uncles. And I would make lemonade. But little things I found out, like, I would ask my grandmother for the little twig of a mint from her window box.

And putting that in made my uncles go crazy. So I knew that even when I fell in love with pedophores, not to bring them home. Because those little things reveal. These things like that. But as long as I wasn't in trouble, there was no problem. But the 50s were very sexual, very sexual. Because we had Liz Taylor and I had older cousins and things. Liz Taylor was, like, almost breaking censorship every day. So these were my heroes, Taylor. And then there was the love of the Barachi and there was an excuse made for the Barachi. And a number of people that were so needed by the public for entertainment, whatever, was accepted. You just didn't mention what they were about, really about. But you knew it. Why do you absolutely, from the beginning? In your own, now how about if you want to talk a little bit about Judy Garland? Did you have feelings for her? Well, she was a background, you might say. I just won't be in the suit.

Who are we talking about? And what did she do? Can you say her name? Judy Garlander? Oh, yes, Judy Garland. Yes, see. Oh, well, she was a background to our, my life. She was a part of the background of my earliest period, Wizard of Oz. And there was something about her that just made all the gay people really like her. And for those people that really liked her, they were rewarded, say, when she performed at the palace and she broke her hand, we all knew it was for us. And I did go to her funeral or see a body, anyway. But no, she was important, but not pivotal to me, but background important. So were there any positive hormones that you did that were openly gay? No. Not very young. There would be James Baldwin as a teenager. There was Tennessee Williams, once I had reached 14, I knew who these were, William Inge. And my first lover was William Inge's secretary. So I mean, these people, I thought,

already had made a breakthrough. I mean, in my heart, because there was something gay about Blanche Du Boin about many of the works, including aspects of picnic. There was always this butchness to the fifties. And the duop was butch. The girl groups didn't come in yet. So all of this, you had to search for this within this butch sexuality of being a counterpoint, which was like my thing, and how to safely play that. Like, as kids, we played King Kong, I would wait. There was nobody left to be the girl. And then I would be the girl. And I could scream, well, I wanted as was handled by the huge gorilla. And I was released a lot of. And a drudging of this game did not my grandmother thought they were durable, things like that was just like, so I had a lot of ways of expressing myself. One time we found this huge carriage. I was about three, five or six in the basement. And my grandmother cleaned it up so we could play with it. And now we get in the carriage, and my sister would go back

and forth to turn on the corner, and would wait for people. My grandmother made a little curtain. And I would wait for people to say, can I see her baby? And when they would open, I would scream at them, vile things. I would not repeat right now. Until they would scream and run away. To my father found out he put his foot through the carriage. You know? How would your experience, like, your none rose? Oh, the sister rose? Oh, yes. Will. Well, in first grade, there was a sister rose. She was very nice and very popular. But she had, in the closet, a dress. And if you were a bad boy, which I seldom ever was, you would put the dress on you and take you in front of the class. And what happened was, for some reason, I was talking. And I wanted to finish what I was saying. And she thought maybe I should be made a scapegoat this time since I was never in trouble. And she put the dress on me. And we had crew cuts, and it just felt funny. And all the kids were giggling. It was a horrible thing until I felt the dress.

And she made me stand in front of them, and I grabbed it, and started enjoying it, and started almost starting to curtsy with it when she grabbed me and ripped it off. And she just was very sorry that she had put the dress on me. And that's like, she was guilty for the rest of her life. So you had mentioned today the ones who used the word treacherous in terms of coming out. Was there a part of it that felt hard or were there situations that you felt like, why? Do you remember that? The word treacherous. What was treacherous era, if you were? Yeah, that's the thing. Yes. It was all time treacherous, because like the laundry man, I was madly in love with. And I would look at him in a certain way that he would have spawned very strangely. If anything happened, it would not have been his fault. But it would have been a betterist. I was admitting these things. And to a certain type, and that type, I continued to deal with the rest of my life. And that laundry man was the first one who set my sexuality off. And also, I was taken to the mirror building,

because my father used to work part-time for the New York mirror. And there, I wasn't pubic yet, so I could go into the showers. And it was this amazing world with nudy calendars and lockers and men saying what, and men being free to say what they wanted to say. There was nothing, because a little boy didn't matter. But all in all, how would you describe the character in terms of the faculty? Very, very dangerous. It was working, not for me as much because of my family's background and their liberalists. But it was still was walking a tightrope. If anybody should find out it was gay and would tell my mother was in a wheelchair, it would have broken my heart. And she would have thought she did something wrong. I could never let that happen, and it never did. Yet, I was able to fully express myself to quite a bit. So I was very, very fortunate in that way. What about the New York City? What had the, when did you find the girl? What did you find there? Well, actually, I was born in San Francisco Hospital. And then I was raised on 42nd and in 1961, my sister tried to give it suicide over a man.

And it was silly. But nonetheless, she cut herself up enough so everyone could give her a lot of attention. She went to Bellevue. And I remember, because she had a big S on her bed, she said, that means she's special. And I asked the doctor and said, no, she's suicide. I said, oh. And when she was released, she made a whole bunch of new friends. And my life really began more unearnessed. I was able to go with all these beatnicks who didn't care if you were gay, who would let you drink wine, who would encourage you to like the things you like. It was just wonderful. But it was the straight section I was in. I never ventured into the gay section. So can you raise the foot? We have a lot of refrigerator noise leading in. OK. Going back to sort of, I just want to get, like, OK, get to, you know what I was talking a little bit in the other room, about sort of the way the world looked at faggot, and in the 50s. It's hard for people to believe it now.

I had to, I mean, was it different then? You couldn't walk around and hold hands? You could be beaten at any time. And there was some sort of distinctions, like the working class section of my neighborhood. A man in my building was gay. He was called Freddie the Fag. But the man in Trudor City was better or more well off. He was called Freddie the Fruit. There were those distinctions. But you'll forget, I was born in Turtle Bay. It was extremely liberating, not liberated, but it was extremely liberal neighborhood. You know, we had, well, just so many things going on. There were models there. The UN was there. They were always filmed there. Not typical. What about, yeah, no, you had a kind of, like, you were lucky that way. Very. What about, just saying, we're talking about what era, and what sort of, like, how do you think gay people were treated across the country? Oh, I know terribly. It was terrible.

I knew that. You see your own coals. OK, yes, I noticed that even, like, say, in the early 60s, if you would go near Port Authority, there were tons of people coming in. And they were gay. And I think that what was happening was that it wasn't, as if the situation was getting worse for gay people, but there were more of them. So they were bound to get into situations. I mean, I didn't know the real dangers that were occurring. I knew that you had to be careful with my friends. I knew that you had to be careful of predators, since we were near Times Square. So we were told about gay people to protect us from predators. But there was no distinction between predators and gay people at all when you really looked at the entire situation. So it was, yes, it was terrible. I mean, if you lifted your pinky as you drank something, it was a sign. If someone had asked you to look at your heel and you raised it in a certain way, it was like a woman.

And they would look for these things. Somehow being gay was the most terrible thing. You could possibly be. And I just didn't understand that. I just thought you had to get through this. And I thought I could get through it. But you really had to be smart about it. Clever. Remember everything. Because I really realized I was being trained as a straight person, so I could fool these people. But you know, that's surprising a lot. Well, I took it out in humor. I went towards humor. Camp was my life. And I could see that straight people was something really wrong at them sometimes. Even from TV commercials, like Dubin A. I used to love a commercial. And it would always say, Dubin A. Brom and the Blomotor Rell and Dubin A. Rooster. I just thought this is ridiculous. And so I knew that there was a way of dealing with this. But it was going to be difficult. And it was going to have to be through humor for me. Going back to the persecution part, where there was no humor.

And I didn't think people did a lot of camp historically. We were talking in the room about, like, again, about other eras. How far back did the suppression of game people go? And we were talking about just 50s and 40s were talking about millennials. She was, I'm sure, was the Millenniums. But I knew that New York was the most free city in the country. And I knew that we were the cultural capital already, because we had, or in my neighborhood, all the newspaper reporters, all their restaurants, and everything was going on. And I knew that certain things were happening, like the girl group sound. That helped, like, eight people. I just want to get ahead of this. The Holocaust, can you talk a little bit about the parallel between the Holocaust and sort of historically? Well, yes.

But the Holocaust, the gay Holocaust, I wouldn't have realized in 1964. No, I guess that's not what I mean. I mean, you would mention, like, back in Greek times, and there's been these eras where there was sort of a progressive Holocaust. Oh, yes. I mean, the American conquistadors opened up a Holocaust, because one of the reasons in which they could slay you or kill you was, if you were gay. Sodomy was one of them. I mean, even on the ships they had to sign all the Spanish document, or I understand, a document that they would not engage in Sodomy and Sodomy would be punished. But you see, Sodomy openly affected in this area of the world. And people had no shame of it, it's probably because they didn't know Christ. And these were demons, and they had to be killed. I mean, there was no pardon, I guess, for the Indians, because they were not Christian. It was not a matter of penance. It was a matter of belief. And how would the story, like, it tell me about the cops in the village in terms of the danger,

and it kind of, like, how would they treat it? You had to be careful, you're saying, like, even how you held your pen game. What were the police doing back in the 1950s? Oh, they were pretty horrible. Can you tell me about the New York police? Yeah, they were called Lily Law. And that was a nickname for them. But they were always very difficult. Number one, they were difficult already. They could use some form of corporal punishment or as a kid. I mean, if a cop slapped you, your parents would back the cop sometimes, because, you know, they had beats then. They weren't in cars. So every cop knew who was around. And that was a problem. And they were extremely anti-gape, but it really depended upon your personality. So it was an exclusiveism that I really dislike, but had to use. I mean, I had to use my humor and my wits to escape their punishment. And usually I did. But many others didn't. Well, one friend's face was bashed into a urinal. I remember one time I went to a costume party and I went as Oscar Wilde.

And I took the wrong train and I got off at East New York. And a cop saw me and I had a big sunflower and knickers. And he detained me in front of this gang of kids with sticks. And he was detained because he wasn't going to do it. He was going to have them do their dirty work. And he questioned me until the train left. I could not catch that train. It was going to be another hour, too. It was early in the morning. But it didn't work his way because I think the group admired the way he handled him. Because you know, at the time you had to have three articles of male clothing. So that could ruin any drag outfit. It really wasn't a problem for me. But he was saying that the articles I was wearing were not male, and this was the argument. And when he did leave, he looked back to see what the boys were going to do. And they couldn't do anything. But I was terrified. I was terrified. OK, once I hear about Snowflap, oh, it's snowflap. By the way, can you have more to say than New York City? Yeah, yes, good or two. So what did we show that Snowflap?

I don't know if he'd be going on the minute. Oh, that's that. No way stopped mysteriously. Martin, just to make sure we have it in sound, can you say the New York City, start a sentence saying the New York City police was? The New York City police were extremely difficult to deal with. And try that again just sort of thing with coffee. The New York City police were very difficult to deal with. And they were kind of out to where the, OK, tell me one of the laws. Can you explain the law again and how could you deal with it if you wanted to go camp? Yes, the law was ingenious because three articles called them were mind you, socks didn't count. So it was underwear and undershirt. Now, the next thing was going to ruin the outfit. So this is what they looked for. And at midnight on Halloween, when it turned past Halloween, at midnight, they would get you. And some people felt comfortable. Some people were stoned.

Some people were drunk. Some people just felt free. And they just let their outfit on a little too long. And then they would die hard queens that couldn't care less. They were in and out of jail, but they were heroes. Any, if you know about entrapment, if you know about cops, like it, like pretend. Oh, the vise squad, yes. You know, go in and then, all right, can you explain what they sometimes did in terms of what, you know, had trying to lure a baby for sex and then you turn it on? Oh, many, many times. First of all, the vise squad was strange because they were very well endowed. And that made me suspicious. Like, why is everyone so well endowed? You know, it seemed like a wonderful world. If everybody was in doubt about that. But what they would do was like masturbating a car and you would go over and they would, and usually they're very good looking. And you would make some sort of contact. And they would try to get you to touch it or get in the car or whatever. One time I was near Sheridan Square or no close to the trucks. And this, you know, they were science to look for. Their shoes, they said. You could always tell a cop by their shoes.

That was one side, which was almost pretty accurate. And another one was if you asked a cop they had to tell you. So they said, didn't always happen. But generally, this was so. And one, or a special equipment in a car. And one day I got into the car. I just was at school. I had come down to the village. And I noticed a special telephone. So I told, I said, you know, I said, please, sir. You know, I'm down here and there's all men. They're all looking at each other. And I'm a school kid. I'm really scared. Please could you help me? Just take me to any subway, please. And he was very happy about that. And he took me to the subway and left me off at Sheridan Square. Of course, when I got out, he had left. I showed some of my friends. So when he turned again to see me, I was just carrying on for days. He was furious, but I did get out of it. What was there another story about like going down a cop and then he felt a gun? Oh, yes. So you want to tell that? Yes, it was a very lonely night. And it was about three in the morning. I was exhausted. I was ready to give up. And I had a peekaboo hairdo.

And my bee-stung lips and my fur coat. Because it was getting chilly, but I couldn't. Soon as I got a little chilly with it, my fur coat. And it wasn't really great for copper. To me, it was everything. And I saw this very good-looking guy. I mean, just my type, how lucky. And Riverside Drive. Near the monument on the United States. And he was just, you know, trade, they call it. You know, he would grab himself and it was fine, everything. And then I, but I always carried a volume with me in case anything happened. I could always take my value if I was ever taken to jail. See, this was constant on me. This was what you had to do. Your way of surviving. For me, it was I have a value I could deal with anything. I knew my father would understand. He'd bail me out by needing that value to be calm. And I was doing him. He was very nice. And I put my hand up and I hit the gun. And I remember telling him, look, I said, you know, two things, if I could possibly finish. And if not, can I take this value? And so when you take me in, I'll be calm. And then he was really a nice guy. And he leaned down and said, but you're not a criminal. So that was a very human and humane night.

You see, because they weren't all bad. It wasn't 100%. It was a matter of breaking through to their heart, to their mind, or to their sense of fair play, which is an American thing. So a lot of cops, you could get away. But if they decided to do something about you, it was a fascistic law. There was no way out. Yes, come on and talk about cruising and what that meant. How did you meet other gay men? Let's talk about the area of the trucks. Would you like to describe where you went? And what's talking about the village now, I think? OK, but in the village, what did the village provide? Oh, the village provided everything. And it was Christopher Street where you could, you know, not necessarily always cruise, but have friends. And people to share these things with. And people that love the same actresses you love. And people that remember the same things that you laughed at. And all these wonderful things. And when I was first down there was very young. And I heard about the trucks, which, to me, was fascinated me. You know, I had an imagination that it was like Marseille.

How could it be only a few blocks away? But we went down to the trucks in there. People would have sex in the trucks or around the trucks. And it just seems like fantastic, because the background was this industrial, becoming an industrial ruin. It was a masculine setting. It was a whole world where you, someone looked at you. You're pretty sure they wanted you. It wasn't you had to make a mistake. There weren't mistakes being made on the docks. Everybody was there for one thing. And that was great. What are you talking about when you say everybody? How many people would it be? Well, not a huge amount of people. Those who knew, those who were brave, those who could stay out, those who didn't have morning jobs. This is two or three in the morning. Was it easy for the gays for you to get departments when I go to a department with just like, you know? For gay people? Yeah. Well, I think for the people that were coming lawyers, doctors, all those people, especially the truly middle class people, it was difficult.

And they could be outed without even knowing it. They was one historic, I remember my friend wanted to go into Central Park in the area called the pit. There were billies people down there. I never liked it. I liked the trucks, because I liked trucks. We know I bet you weren't going to be able to be able to have probably to stick with the village. OK. Just right now, given what I was going to talk about. Oh, right. What was, can you just glide at like a scared drag? And you know, use the term and let me tell you about it. Well, scared drag was the term. I think may have been invented by the full drag queens to let you know you, to them, you didn't look too good. But the point of scared drag was to be a drodgenist. I think boy, George almost got it. Only it was a little rougher than that. I mean, I would wear my father's shirts, have long hair. But no matter what I did, if I had a lipstick on, they always knew I was a boy. There was no problem of getting into a truck, or into a car, and then all of a sudden realizing you're a boy, and then killing you. Because everybody knew those dangerous part of trade was when it was over, because they could either get their guilt or not.

And if they got their guilt, you were in trouble. So it was good to have your fun, but to keep one hand on the car door. And that was important. So can you describe your friends? We'll get into the life you're hanging out, OK? Stonewall and just describe how you would dress up the whole the hairdo, the thing, and what you went out of town for it. OK, and I was known for wearing Isadora Duncan scoffs. They were like six feet round scarves, and having a peekaboo hairdo. And occasionally, I wanted to get really wild. I would do my lips beast on. I would always carry a clutch, and I would always wear flats, because you had to run. And it was great. And I would just feel the breeze in the village lifting up the Isadora Duncan scoff. And this marvelous feeling of all this fantasy world come true, and they couldn't do anything about it there. We could just do what we wanted to do. And the most worrisome thing to me

was to make sure I had my clutch big when I got out of a car. It was great. And so you went, like, was there a sense of what was some of the names of the people you remember? Oh, Mary Queen of the Scotch, Congo woman, Captain Faggot, Miss Twiggy, Black Miss Twiggy, Miss Norellings, all those people, like that. Frog Jerry, but you couldn't say that to his face, but he looked like a dead frog. And why did Jerry say such a thing? Because nicknames were still in, and you had to quickly some sunny up. I mean, we're really basic people. We had to just sum them up. And you know, Congo woman, she always wore her in the thatched type of idea, Mary Queen of the Scotch was addicted to Scotch. I mean, there were reasons.

Captain Faggot was once in the army and refused to give up wearing army stuff. So he was Captain Faggot. And that's what you got your name. If you were peculiar, in one way or the other, within this peculiar group, you got a name. And where did you go? What's in the bar, then? Tell me about, like, where did you go for a boat boat for a activity to really be able to do? And why? Well, there was a few places we could gather in dance. Tenth of always was one of them. But as you dance at the tenth of always, a light would go on. Just like in those film nois, I'd seen. And the detective would come and look everybody over and then leave. And when the light went off, you could go back dancing. It was a sense of excitement with that, too, like we were living this kind of film noisled world, which it really was. But we didn't choose to do this. But in the living through it, it could be sometimes interesting. But there was no bar like the Stonewall. Because the Stonewall was like the watering hole on the savanna. Or it was just everybody was there. Every kind of person was there.

In very small groups, or larger groups, who were all there. And that was the main, main stay of, even culturally sometimes, because there's where it really would mix. So what do you mean, like, look just there? I mean, this might just be a little bit. When you say everybody at the Stonewall, really mean? Well, in the front part of the bar would be like A-gays, like regular gays that didn't go in any kind of drag, didn't use the word she, that type. But they were for gay, 100% gay. And then as you turn into the other room with the jukebox, there's where the drag queens around the jukebox. They sent it around the jukebox. And then they were the scared drags. In that section of the bar, but scattered as to what kind of friends you had, what kind of main drag queen you admired. And then maybe you could sit with her for a little while and she was just retired of you. It was just great though. So imagine yourself on a regular normal night going in there. Where, what's the process of getting in? Well, it would be exciting.

And we would go in. And I was not excited for the first part of the bar. I was waiting to get to the second part. Even getting in, didn't you have to, was there some sort of special code thing? What I think, is this a regular bar, or is it called a private club, or did you know, were there rules about getting in, signing, what? No, I don't think we signed in. I just think, you know, I was never the first one in. So the first person in, there was some questioning. And then they started to know you. But I was never the first one in. I was always like two or three behind and we just went in. So it was very easy, the access to me. And I don't think there was any really problem. I think once in a while they did ask you something, like how old you are, for the new person, or something like that. Would you carry her? Oh, yes. Can you tell me I'm sorry without my words? What did you have on your wire? I had ID because my father was getting worried as I was getting louder and louder if I was going to be arrested. And so he wanted me to carry ID and also so that I could call him. In case I was arrested, he would bail me out. So that was my safety net.

And it did work a few times. I did save a few people. Yep. Could you define what I was going to do today? You know, I was going to lie. Can you read more and more out? That's why I'm married. What do you mean you can change that? Louder and louder. Well, at first I started wearing like just denims and a sports jacket and grew my hair a little longer long before the Beatles. That would put me in the beatenic category or hip category. You could be beaten for that too. So you could imagine how bad it was to be gay. But and I could also go through the neighborhood. I could change downtown. I could do what I want. When I came home, I was already on, but not out too odd. But as time was going on, month by month, different things were happening. I started abandoning the suit jacket. I started putting a little color in my hair. I started wearing flouncy things. I started then started wearing my easy-druck and scoffs outside from the building. So there was no stopping it. And do you think that was a reflection? No, I don't want that.

OK. Of the times, 1969 was a different beginning. What was the climate different in 1969 than 1961? Yes. It was very different. Because the book City of Night was written? Can you say in 1969? In 1969 or by 1969. The book was written at the City of Night, which brought tremendous amount of people. There were tremendous amount of gay people coming in. And the crowds were larger than ever before on Christopher Street. And people knew, for some reason, too come to Christopher Street. There was a tremendous amount of people, actually, which wasn't originally. Maybe Saturday night they were. But it really was for. By the time of the ride itself, the street was really busy. In terms of gay people, it's hurt. Can you change tape here? Am I doing OK?