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Leading the Parade |
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Interview by Jack Nichols
When we discussed my pioneering old friends and comrades-in-arms, I saw that they were not just subject-matter-fodder to Paul, but that in many cases they'd become his mentors, friends, and confidants. Through his new book, that individualistic magic that only gadflies, reformers, heretics, radicals, and revolutionaries can emit works to transform the readers of Leading the Parade themselves. What actually impelled those who instigated the gay and lesbian revolts? Paul Cain wanted to know. What had made them flout the great taboo, bravely climbing over seemingly impregnable barricades, demanding uncompromising equality for same-sex love and affection? Leading the Parade is not only an inspiring foray into the lives and opinions of these revolutionaries, but in their own words Paul D. Cain has, with passion and clarity, preserved their memories for future generations. 
Jack Nichols: Paul, you've shown an amazing curiosity about our movement's founders and leaders. Why? Did this curiosity emerge during your own coming out process?
Paul D. Cain: I owe a debt of gratitude to Peter Adair and the other filmmakers of the documentary Word Is Out (1977). I saw it on TV before I could claim my own homosexuality in 1984, and I believe it helped me to see gay and lesbian people as people, not as sexual predators. I also grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area during the brief era of Harvey Milk. What a time that was! When Harvey and Mayor George Moscone were shot and killed by Dan White five months after I graduated from high school in 1978, I vowed to come out with a vengeance. After a bold start earlier that summer, circumstances delayed my coming out for six years. But when I did come out, I had already done a ton of internal processing, and I've never looked back. After I came out, John D'Emilio's Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities and Jonathan Ned Katz's Gay American History whetted my appetite for gay history. Jack Nichols: Initially, you conducted interviews or wrote biographies of one hundred of our movement's luminaries. Your publisher, however, opted to publish only 39 of these. Why was this? Space? Paul D. Cain: I believe space was the most significant factor -- the original manuscript exceeded 1000 pages! Unless it's Gone With the Wind or War and Peace, that large a book is not commercially viable.
Paul D. Cain: Let me share some excerpts from Leading the Parade: "My first step outside my own efforts on the road toward writing this book was a November 1993 letter I sent to Jim Kepner. ... When I wrote him, I knew no other potential interviewee, and knew Kepner only tangentially. Nor did I know how I might contact others I wished to interview. Had Jim turned down or ignored my request, I likely never would have written this book. ... I remain eternally grateful for his kindness and for his invaluable help in making my book a reality." "Kepner never really sought the limelight, and in many ways this self-effacing man remained humble to a fault. Of the senior movement-based men I met, he possessed the least ego; I spoke with Kepner more easily than with the others, with whom I often felt as if I was polkaing with porcupines."
Jack Nichols: Your odyssey as a writer, I'd say, should prove an inspiration to all aspiring writers. You had no contract, but that didn't stop you from gathering voluminous material, honing and paring it until it reached its present form. It took you seven years to get your book published, but you didn't give up. There must have been times when you despaired, or did you always feel confident? Paul D. Cain: Actually, Jack, when I stopped to re-count it, I spent nearly NINE years from the beginning of my research until I held the book in my hands. I almost quit for the first time around 1996, when a fellow gay writer told me he was reviewing a book with my exact working title: The Gay 100! I brooded for a couple of weeks, but then pressed on. Then it took me over two years of serious effort (following five years of less intense effort) to find a publisher! Scarecrow Press has treated me wonderfully. My advice to struggling authors? 1. Never give up. 2. Work to make your product the very best it can be. 3. NEVER GIVE UP! Jack Nichols: What were some of the principal roadblocks you encountered as you sought to conduct your interviews? Did some of the interviewees have objections to things you unearthed about them?
And then there's the senior member of L.A.'s gay community who welcomed me warmly and showed me great hospitality. Unfortunately, I angered him because I would not compile my profile of him exclusively from the materials he provided to me. In Leading the Parade, the principals all talk about their experiences with one another, and some were fairly salivating to dish the dirt about him. (In fairness, he was not averse to dishing it out about others, either!) He disliked my draft profile so much that he called my publisher and threatened to sue Scarecrow and me! Scarecrow defended my rights, but they didn't want to publish his profile without his approval. So that chapter is shelved indefinitely. You can't please 'em all! Jack Nichols: During your travels you were introduced not only to the pioneers of our movement but to many of America's gay and lesbian communities as well. I'm curious about what kind of impressions these travels made on you. Culturally, I'm sure, there must have been major differences from state to state. Paul D. Cain: Before I began Leading the Parade, I had never traveled in the U.S. east of Arizona, where I lived at the time. Florida, Minnesota/Wisconsin, and the East Coast were very different experiences for me. Barbara Grier described her home on Alligator Point, Florida as "redneck country," and I found her appellation accurate. Milwaukee, Wisconsin appeared to me to be very depressed financially, although my host there, Miriam Ben-Shalom, was great. Poughkeepsie (Kate Millett) and the Catskills (Joan Nestle) in New York were breathtakingly beautiful, as was Charlottesville, Virginia (Rita Mae Brown). I liked Washington, D.C. very much; it was the place where I felt most comfortable. And I discovered how awful Boston drivers are! People from Boston are great until you put them behind the wheel of a car. They drive on the sidewalks, and they quadruple park! New York City was a breeze after that!
Paul D. Cain: Kurt met several of my interviewees, but he didn't sit in on many of the interviews. The two incidents I remember most vividly were our "serious discussion" on our way into Miami when I was late to my interview with Jack Campbell, and my delight when Kurt walked into my interview with Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen wearing a button that said, "Help! I'm living with an unpublished writer!" Fortunately for me, Kurt's a pretty mellow guy and a wonderful travel companion. I don't know if I could have finished the book without his assistance. Jack Nichols: I'm wondering if you've developed any ways for distinguishing certain pioneers and their exploits from the approaches of other pioneers? You didn't include one well-known pioneer, for example, and I know he was upset because you said you were planning to include bisexuals in your book. Paul D. Cain: I made no attempt to interview Harry Hay for Leading the Parade because I had read that he considered interviews "hetero-imitative," and I didn't want to offend him. If you want to link the article about my encounter with Harry that I wrote for GayToday a few years ago, your readers can experience it for themselves. Jack Nichols: I was delighted at your praise for an old and very good friend of mine, writing: "More than any other person (Frank) Kameny shaped the American lesbian and gay rights movement into its present state today." I agree with you about Kameny, but I'd like to ask, how did you arrive at this viewpoint?
Jack Nichols: Among your interviewees are some of our community's pioneering politicians. I notice that San Francisco's Harry Britt is still in the fray, although others, like Jose Sarria, have long since retired from politics. And Kameny, as you know, was first to run for Congress and although he didn't win, he inspired others to try. Kameny entered the political arena long after he'd launched his career as an activist. Was this mostly true of the other gay and lesbian politicians you interviewed? Paul D. Cain: Much to my surprise, I only just heard about Harry Britt's recent political exploits yesterday when I was in San Francisco! Upon reflection, I found a pretty even split between the activists who went into politics (Jean O'Leary, Ginny Apuzzo, Harry Britt) and the political folks who became gay activists (Allan Spear, David Clarenbach, Barney Frank). Jack Nichols: I know you and Kurt are members of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, and that you interviewed its pioneering founder, the Reverend Troy Perry. This must have been a very special occasion for you, was it? Paul D. Cain: I've been an active UFMCC member since 1984. In Leading the Parade, Kurt describes my meeting Troy as tantamount to my having "an audience with the Pope!" But I love Troy, and I don't think the gay movement has given him his due. Troy began his commitment to the movement in the late '60s, and like Frank Kameny, he has never ceased to work on its behalf. Additionally, UFMCC is the largest umbrella organization that serves the GLBT community in America. A lot of places have no national gay presence other than their local MCC. While UFMCC's primary mission is spiritual, a lot of MCC churches are de facto gay community centers. Jack Nichols: You've interviewed as many lesbians as gay men. Who self-identified as a bisexual? Was it Kate Millet? Paul D. Cain: Curiously, I don't believe anyone I interviewed actually self-identified as bisexual. But the ones whose serious affectional relationships included women and men would be Holly Near, JoAnn Loulan, David Clarenbach, and Kate Millett. Rita Mae Brown wrote in Rita Will, "I'm not even a good lesbian. I'm much more bisexual." I don't recall any of her affairs with men, but we all remember her relationship with Martina Navratilova. Her list of past lovers is pretty extensive, including Massachusetts State Rep. Elaine Noble, Martina's ex Judy Nelson, and actress Fannie Flagg. Jack Nichols: In what ways do you hope readers of Leading the Parade will benefit most from reading your book? Paul D. Cain: If they learn some things they didn't know, and they take some risks on behalf of the GLBTQ community, I don't think I could ask for much more than that. Jack Nichols: Because you've covered so many periods in American lesbian and gay history---between the late 1940s and the present-what are some of the impressions you've gained about those periods. Were some more exciting than others? Paul D. Cain: The American gay movement really began to come to life in the '50s, when the "Big Three" organizations (Mattachine, ONE, and DOB) were founded. That's when gay people began to interact with each other about their lives and their oppression. Then in the '60s, when society pushed us, we began to push back. This happened in San Francisco in '65, in LA in '67, and at Stonewall in New York City in '69. In the '70s, we experienced lesbian separatism and a real glorification of same-sex sexuality among gay men, and I think it may have been the most dynamic decade. AIDS dealt us a horrible blow in the '80s, and we came together from our utopias to confront our mortality. The '90s started with a controversy (outing), and ended with more gay visibility than ever before. I don't know what's coming in this decade, but I feel optimistic about our short-term future. Jack Nichols: Paul, I want to thank you for having asked me to write the Foreword to your book. The day you called to say you'd received your first published copy was the day before my birthday and it feels to me like THE perfect birthday gift and its a very handsome volume. And I want to thank you too for your amazing perseverance, your enthusiasm in tracking down and traveling afar to meet so many of our movement's pioneers. The work you've done not only preserves these extraordinary people for the future, but it inspires today's brave activists to take up the banner of our cause. I'm heartily recommending Leading the Parade to all of GayToday's readers. Paul D. Cain: Jack, your friendship has been one of my greatest gifts along my journey. I know you know how much I love you. Also, because this version of Leading the Parade is not inexpensive, I would urge your more frugal readers to ask their public library to buy Leading the Parade. Scarecrow primarily designs its books for the library market, and it would help me tremendously. Leading the Parade is available for a 15% discount at www.scarecrowpress.com or (without the discount) at 1-800-462-6420, and it can also be purchased at www.amazon.com Thanks for letting me talk about my book, Jack! |
Paul D. Cain: Author of Leading the Parade
Gay pioneer Jim Kepner 
Paul D. Cain traveled far and wide to interview America's
pioneering lesbian and gay thinkers and doers. Their conversations with him are preserved in Leading the Parade 
Paul Cain and his lover, Kurt 
The Rev. Troy Perry is on the list of Paul D. Cain's most influential gay activists 
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