Making Gay History | LGBTQ Oral Histories from the Archive podcast artwork
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Making Gay History | LGBTQ Oral Histories from the Archive

by Eric Marcus

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Latest episodes

  • The Queens of Welfare Island: Preview

    October 1, 2026 · 4 min

    A century ago, at a notorious men’s penitentiary in New York City, gay inmates managed to find joy and community through their annual Christmas show, the “F*g Follies.” This season, join Eric Marcus as he delves into their lives and…

  • Lou Sullivan

    July 30, 2026 · 42 min

    When Lou Sullivan sought gender-affirming care in the 1970s, he was turned down. The reason? Lou identified as a gay man at a time when all trans people were assumed to be straight—a conflation of gender identity and sexual orientation…

  • Barney Frank

    July 23, 2026 · 27 min

    “Are you gay?” a reporter asked U.S. Representative Barney Frank in 1987. “Yes, so what?” With that, Frank became the first member of Congress to voluntarily come out as gay. But the casualness of his reply hid decades of agonizing and a…

  • Nancy May

    July 16, 2026 · 29 min

    Nancy May’s allyship was as personal as it was political. After all, she was married to a gay man. In 1965, her involvement in San Francisco’s homophile movement placed her at the center of a headline-making face-off between the police and…

  • Jim Kepner

    July 9, 2026 · 31 min

    Raised in a religious home in 1920s and ’30s Texas, Jim Kepner pieced together a sense of his identity where he could—a homoerotic suggestion read between the lines here, a secretly acquired booklet there. His collection of gay-themed…

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  • Pat Bond

    July 2, 2026 · 27 min

    Pat Bond joined the Women’s Army Corps in 1945, driven by patriotism and a desire to be among lesbians. The war required bodies, so the U.S. military turned a blind eye to service members’ sexual orientation. But as Pat witnessed…

  • Mabel Hampton

    June 25, 2026 · 22 min

    Mabel Hampton was a performer and domestic worker who lived as an out lesbian in New York City from 1920 until her death in 1989. Her recorded oral histories offer a rare firsthand account of Black lesbian life during the Harlem…

  • Christine Jorgensen

    June 18, 2026 · 28 min

    When news broke in 1952 that Christine Jorgensen, an ex-GI from the Bronx, had undergone gender-affirming surgery, she became a global sensation. In this 1957 interview, meet the thoughtful woman behind the frenzied headlines as she took…

  • Preview

    June 18, 2026 · 5 min

    MGH is back for another dive into the archives! Drawing from Eric’s own collection of rare interviews and other repositories of LGBTQ history, we’ll bring you the voices of seven LGBTQ change-makers and allies whose stories will take you…

  • The Nazi Era: Overview Part II

    February 6, 2025 · 40 min

    In our second introductory episode, we focus on life in the Nazi concentration camps and offer a glimpse into the experiences of LGBTQ people in occupied countries during WWII as we continue to set the context for the eight profile…

  • The Nazi Era: Overview Part I

    January 30, 2025 · 30 min

    In this first of two introductory episodes, hear how the walls closed in on LGBTQ people after Hitler came to power through the recorded and written memories of multiple queer people who witnessed or fell victim to the Nazis’…

  • The Nazi Era: Prologue

    January 27, 2025 · 10 min

    Host Eric Marcus welcomes listeners to MGH’s “Nazi Era” series by going back in time to 1980 and a darkened Broadway theater where his interest in LGBTQ Holocaust history was kindled. Join Eric as we embark on a 12-episode journey and…

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About the show

Intimate, personal portraits of both known and long-forgotten champions, heroes, and witnesses to history brought to you from rare archival interviews.