Queer Voices
Queer Voices
April 30th 2025 Queer Voices - Talk with Tony's Place, Dixie Longate and Judy Reeves
On this episode, we speak with Tony's Place executive director Carrie Rai and catch up with this organization providing services to LGBT youth. Then we have a conversation with Dixie Longate and her Tupperware Party. And finally we speak with Judy L Reeves about the Gulf Coast Archive and Museum of GLBT History, Inc. (GCAM), Queer Radio and the late Jimmy Carper.
Queer Voices airs in Houston Texas on 90.1FM KPFT and is heard as a podcast here. Queer Voices hopes to entertain as well as illuminate LGBTQ issues in Houston and beyond. Check out our socials at:
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Hello everybody, this is Queer Voices, a podcast version of a broadcast radio show that's been on the air in Houston, texas, for several decades. This week, brian Levinka talks to the executive director of Tony's Place, which offers day services to LGBTQ youth who are not housed. Some private foundations have cut funding this year because of the current political climate.
Speaker 2:We are concerned about reduced funding. We have heard from some private foundations that have actually decided and they have notified us that they will not be giving to us this year because they cannot be seen giving to an LGBTQ organization.
Speaker 1:Brett Cullum talks with Dixie Longate, who has appeared in Dixie's Tupperware Party at Stages Houston. Dixie Longate is the alter ego of actor and dancer Chris Anderson, of actor and dancer Chris Anderson and Debra Moncrief-Bell. Has a conversation with Judy Reeves about her legacy of the Gulf Coast Archives and Museum. Queer Radio and Jimmy Carper.
Speaker 3:I want everybody to know that this change in GCAM is not to narrow down any of the collections that we've had for the last 25 years, but to focus more, to bring it into a scope of primarily leather collections.
Speaker 1:Queer Voices starts now.
Speaker 4:This is Brian Levinka, and I have the honor of interviewing one of my favorite people, Carrie Ray, the executive director of Tony's Place. Welcome to the show, Keri.
Speaker 2:Hi, thank you, Brian.
Speaker 4:What is Tony's Place and how did you get involved?
Speaker 2:Tony's Place. Our mission is to support and empower LGBTQ youth between the ages of 14 and 25 in the Houston area. We actually have a resource center and a drop-in center in the heart of the Montrose area where we offer many different services, including the heart of our area, which is the drop-in services, where people and youth can get access to showers, a hot meal, clothing, hygiene products. They can do their laundry. But we also offer one-on-one case management support and that looks like helping youth define what goals they want to achieve in life, helping walking them through achieving those goals, helping them be successful. And in the past year, we have expanded to after school programs. We offer an art group. We offer a book club. We are just thriving. Over the past year, we have opened up five days a week in January, so our services are open Monday through Friday and youth have been coming in every day and more and more youth are coming in. So that's a little bit about Tony's Place.
Speaker 2:I became the executive director in August of 2023. I was the first executive director. Tony's Place was founded in 2015. They opened their doors in 2016, after the untimely death of Tony Carroll, who was the founder and brainchild of Tony's Place, and in 2023, like I said, I became the first executive director. There was myself and one other staff member, and now we have grown to seven staff. We are open five days a week with seven staff and we're thriving.
Speaker 4:So how did you end up with Tony's Place in Houston?
Speaker 2:I am a proud Canadian. I actually became a dual citizen last year. I moved from Canada in 2015. I moved from Canada in 2015. I immigrated down here with an ex-partner. They worked in oil and gas and I'm a social worker. We divorced and I fell in love with another person who's also a social worker, and they are from the San Antonio area but works in Houston, and I've decided I want to stay in Houston and you know I've always wanted to lead a small nonprofit and I realized I was pansexual and from the LGBTQ community. I am married to a trans man who I love to death. I think just the timing was perfect. So there was this position with Tony's Place. I was looking for a new opportunity. I have found my dream job at Tony's Place. I get to serve my community, I get to do the job that I've always wanted to do and I don't feel like I'm going to work every day. I feel like I get up and get to live my dream life.
Speaker 4:What is your greatest accomplishment at Tony's Place In?
Speaker 2:2022, our operating budget was about $168,000. This year, our operating budget for 2025 has grown to $750,000. So that is tremendous growth over the last three, four years. And the reason being is last year we secured our very first government grant through Harris County. So we actually got two grants in 2024 that are helping us be open five days a week, which is very important. Our drop-in services were only three days a week.
Speaker 2:Now that we are open five days a week, we're actually seeing more clients come in and they're coming in more often. Now that we're consistently open, it's hard for someone to remember when you're open. When we were only open Tuesday, wednesday and Friday, but now we're Monday through Friday. The youth remember when we're open and they come in. So I'm going to tell you, share a little bit of statistics. So last March March 2024, we had clients come in 151 times in that month. In March 2025, we had clients come in 429 times. That's just crazy amount of growth. And then people are going to ask how many clients? So last year at this time we had 33 clients individual clients that were coming in. This year we have 66 clients individual clients that came in in the month of March. In 2024, we had about 200 clients that came through our doors and we served almost 2,000 meals. This year we're planning to serve well over 3,000 meals.
Speaker 4:I'm part of an organization called EPA, the Executive Professional Association of Houston, and we held a fundraiser for Tony's Place I think it was last year for renovations. Can you talk about the renovations that you're planning or have already done? I don't know if you've done them yet.
Speaker 2:I want to first off, thank EPA for choosing us as their beneficiary and then, second, thank EPA for the great amount of funds that EPA raised. So EPA raised $50,000 for Tony's Place to help us with our building renovations. There's two parts to the renovations One to help us replace the flooring in our upstairs part of the building. That part of the building the floors were carpet and had not been replaced in about 20, 30 years. So we have actually replaced the floors now and that space is usable. We were using it as storage but because we've expanded staff, we have needed the office space. So those floors went in right after the fundraiser in the fall. So we have those new floors.
Speaker 2:And the second part of the expenses for the funds that we raised were to renovate our bathrooms. So one of the number one services that clients come in, particularly in the summer, are to access our shower. Right now we currently only have one shower in the building and this means that our youth can only shower for about 10 minutes and then they need to get out quickly. So with the funds raised by EPPA this year, we will be renovating our bathrooms to add two more showers into our building. So we will have three showers, which means more youth can shower in a single day, which is amazing, so that they can feel clean, feel good about themselves, we don't have to rush them out of the shower and they can really live with dignity.
Speaker 4:Just to be clear, these services are for unhoused youth, lgbt youth right.
Speaker 2:The majority of the clients that come in during our day service are either unhoused or unstably housed. However, our services are for all LGBTQ youth, so we do have after-school programming for youth that are in school. We try to tailor our services for everybody, but those services during the day, like the showers, are mainly used by LGBTQ youth who do not have a place to shower.
Speaker 4:Talk about issues you may see coming from the government, from legislature, and what you may be preparing for.
Speaker 2:We are concerned about reduced funding. We have heard from some private foundations that have actually decided and they have notified us that they will not be giving to us this year because they cannot be seen giving to an LGBTQ organization. So this will impact organizations, including us, financially. We do have to seek out funds elsewhere to make up for that difference, so we will be turning to other foundations, other companies, individuals who can give to help us sustain our operations. People may not want to be associated with giving to certain organizations because of fear that their funding will be cut off, like we've seen with Harvard, we've seen with Health and Human Services. Funds are being stopped at this time.
Speaker 4:I understand that you have a new board chair.
Speaker 2:Thanks to our long-standing board chair, al Amato. He has been with Tony's Place from the beginning. He was part of forming the organization. He has been a great board chair, helping guide the organization through COVID, helping to make sure that it is sustained, and now that his time is up, he's been with the organization for about 10 years. So he is now moving on to bigger and better things and we have brought in Stephen Parks. He has been with Tony's Place for almost two years now. He has his own private practice as a therapist and he also works for the University of Houston as a professor, and he also works for the University of Houston as a professor. So we are so thrilled to have him lead the charge with Tony's Place.
Speaker 4:Do you have any events coming up?
Speaker 2:We have a drag show and lip syncing Beneficiary May 2nd. All of our events upcoming events can be found at tonysplaceorg.
Speaker 4:All nonprofits need volunteers. Tell us what you need and how can the community help you.
Speaker 2:Tony's Place has many volunteer opportunities. We actually rely on our volunteers to cook our meals, serve our meals, help in our clothing store, serve our meals, help in our clothing store. We are just a small but mighty organization but we rely on those volunteers. So if you are interested in helping greet clients, check their bags, helping them sign up for laundry, helping sort through donations, help cook meals, you can go to our website at tonysplaceorg. In the top right-hand corner there is a button that says volunteer. You can click on that and it'll guide you through how to sign up to be a volunteer and take our volunteer orientation.
Speaker 4:Is there anything that I didn't ask that you would like to let our listeners know about?
Speaker 2:I'd like to talk about our Craft your Pride program. We started this program last year and it is a way to bring youth to the table. A lot of people don't ever want to attend a support group, so we didn't want to call this a support group, so we called it an art group. Tony's Place provides all the art supplies. We have staff case managers on hand to be there in case tough conversations come up. But this is really a place where youth can sit down, be creative.
Speaker 2:We have had many different mediums of art. We've created vision boards, We've used clay, canvas and we have the art all over our building. And what's happened recently is we have partnered with a queer art studio called Feisty Collective. They sell different artist crafts and we have held a queer art show there. We've held two so far, and this is where Tony's Place clients can actually sell their art that they've created at our center. We've worked with clients to ensure that they have a bank account and that they can sell their art and receive the money directly themselves. So this program has turned in not just a therapeutic support group, but it's also turned into an opportunity for economic advancement. So we've had these two art shows and every time each of our artists have sold at least one piece of art, and we are going to be having another art show come up in June and then July as well.
Speaker 4:We've been speaking with the fabulous Carrie Ray, the executive director of Tony's Place here in Houston. Carrie, keep up the good work and thanks for coming on the show.
Speaker 3:This is Avery Bellew. My pronouns are she and her, and I am the CEO of the Montreux Center, houston's LGBTQ plus center.
Speaker 5:And you are listening to Queer Voices, an integral part of Houston's LGBTQ plus community.
Speaker 6:Dixie Longgate has been selling Tupperware in her theatrical party since 2007. This has become a sensation and, believe it or not, you can actually order Tupperware at this theater show. She actually sells this stuff. It's hilarious, and all of it is the genius move of Chris Anderson, who had a film and a drag career even before this madness started. Now Dixie is going to be at stages for a two-week run. Tickets are already selling fast about as fast as plastic containers, to be honest. So welcome to Queer Voices, chris, or rather Dixie, both of you at once. What? I will flip back and forth between both voices. This is a shock, because I've only heard Dixie, so Chris's voice is very different. That's amazing, Chris. How are you.
Speaker 6:I am so good. What an honor to have you. I am just amazed because I've heard about this for years. I mean, everybody always talks about this show and how wonderful it is. Please tell me how all of this got started with this Tupperware party.
Speaker 7:It was interesting. I went to a Tupperware party years ago in 2001 with a couple of friends of mine and a friend of mine said oh my God, the woman that was doing the party was trying to basically recruit everybody at the party and a friend of mine that was there said oh, you should do it, you'd be great, you'd do it in character, that would be so funny. And he kind of dared me to do it in drag and so I created this character, this kind of Southern housewife from the wrong side of the tracks, and just did a couple Tupperware parties. And it caught on and more and more people were inviting me to do parties and I was going up the ranks of the Tupperware Corporation as a consultant and selling more and more Tupperware. And it was interesting, I would go to these.
Speaker 7:I was living in LA at the time and I would do a lot of my parties in Orange County, which is just south of LA, and obviously, famously, the Orange County housewives dominate that area. This is before that TV show was on, but the same women were there, you know, and I would go to the parties and they would be fascinated with me. They would always ask me, you know, oh, tell me about you. And I'm, you know, in full character. I'm setting up my Tupperware table before the party. And I would say, oh, I'm Dixie, and you know, this is my, you know, I'm from Alabama and I've been doing this. And then I'd turn it on them and I'd say, well, tell me about you. And they would say, oh well, you know, my husband does this. And I'd say, okay, well then, tell me about you. And they'd in ballet. And I kept noticing how these women would talk around themselves. You know, their identity was completely linked to other people.
Speaker 7:And so when I I I told a friend of mine who's a director in New York, oh, I'm doing this thing now, I'm doing these Tupperware parties. And he's the one who said, oh, this should be a show, you need to turn this into something. And so I kind of wrote it as a love letter to the unsung women that don't see their own strength, and I put it together. We took it to New York as part of the New York International Fringe Festival back in 2004. And that was seen by a number of people. That kind of had some influence.
Speaker 7:They moved it up the food chain and I ended up having an off-Broadway developmental run in 2007, which led to the tour, and it was a very different show at that time because there were a lot of hands on that show when it went into New York and so it wasn't exactly the show I wanted to do. And so when the tour was already connected to it, but the tour was going to end up being too expensive the way they wanted to do it, so I kind of rewrote it and stripped it all down to what it needed to be, which is a love letter to women, and so that's how it ended up going on the road in 2008. And the booker at the time thought we'd maybe get a year out of it, at most maybe 18 months. And 17 years later, the show is still going, and this is my final year. I'm wrapping everything up in the fall.
Speaker 7:So, as far as the road is concerned, I'm wrapping up. I've got bigger designs past that, but that's how it all came to be, and so it's a fun opportunity to go. People kind of underestimate what the show is. They think it's going to be a silly little show about a tupperware party, and it ends up having this message about resilience and finding your own courage and your own strength and lifting yourself up and people are always kind of sucker punched by that and it inspires people to walk away from the show, kind of valuing themselves a little bit more.
Speaker 6:Wow, I mean that's a lot.
Speaker 7:That's amazing.
Speaker 4:I'm not good at one-word answers.
Speaker 6:No, that's amazing, though, but okay, and if you want to, you can answer this as Dixie. I would just like to know who is Dixie. Where did you come from, dixie?
Speaker 7:She is. Well, listen, I have had a couple of run-ins, I've been married three times. I have three kids that I know of, you know, and yeah, you know I start. I was doing things I never thought I would be a tough word lady. I was doing things that normally weren't. You know, panning out from where I was from. And you know my mama said I'm not pretty enough to work at this strip club, but I was bendy enough and so, but I would come from a place they didn't throw dollars, they'd throw quarters, and I didn't want to go through my 20s getting these little bruises all over me. So I said, no, I'm going to do something better. And I was on part of the conditions of my parole, my parole officer. When I got out one time she said you know, you need a job in order to get your kids back. And I was like who wants that? That's no, you know, be changed obviously. And so I started.
Speaker 7:She's the one who suggested I start selling Tupperware and I did it and I became top selling Tupperware lady in the entire United States and Canada, which is so crazy. But I would go to these Jubilees, the big Tupperware convention, and that's really what got inspiring to me, because I would watch all these women get celebrated for what they were doing you know, selling Tupperware and having their own business and I was like, oh, I want to be like that. I want to get up on stage and be recognized like all these other great ladies are being, and so that's what really got me going in the whole Tupperware thing and to be able to go into people's homes and share some quality, creative food storage solutions with them and be able to laugh and drink. This is the bottom line. I get to drink for free at work and that's really why you do any job. If you don't get to do that, you need to really reconsider what you're doing for a living.
Speaker 6:You're doing something wrong if you can't drink at your job. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 7:I mean, that's the thing I was like when I went to my first party. The host said would you like a cocktail? I said oh no, I'm working. She's like, but it's a party now. Are you like related to reba mcintyre at all, because you look a lot like reba. Oh my god, that is the nicest compliment anyone's ever given me all the time.
Speaker 7:No, I'm not. I don't. I'm not related to anybody that I'm aware of, and so you know, it's just. I'm just a southern redhead. That's what happens, you know. You get in the south and everybody's kind of related to everybody else, whether they know it or not, because you, you know the population down there is well, we're longing for something of meaning, and so sometimes mama gets behind the dumpster and finds something on a Friday night. You never know what you're going to be doing. You know how it is. Nine months later, mistakes are made.
Speaker 6:Always. Now, okay, you were at Stages until April 20th. How did you connect with stages? How did they get dixie long gate?
Speaker 7:well, I have been in houston a couple times before I had been at the um touch presented me the first time. I came through a theater under the stars at the hobby center and then I was brought back two different times there. And then I've also played galveston at the opera house three times and then I think it was just a mitchell greco, who's one of the members that runs the whole thing, reached out and he said, hey, you're pretty. And I was like, it's true, I can't help it because of Jesus or whatever. And then he said you won't come to your program here and I said I love that. That would be so fun.
Speaker 7:So it was just about people knowing me from you know, having been here before and they were looking for some fun programming for their season and they said, well, we'd like to try this, because we had seen the show over at the Hobby Center and we really got a giggle and we thought our audiences over here would enjoy the show a lot. So they said let's come on in. So two weeks I'm here and I'm having a good time. I mean, everything in Houston is fantastic, so fantastic. So I'm having a good time here and everybody's so naively.
Speaker 7:It's very interesting because the their audiences that go to the performing arts center are somewhat different than the audiences that go to stages, and so it's you know where I go to the performing arts center. People know me, they're used to because I've been there a bunch, and so I'm sort of having to rebuild an audience. There's a lot of people coming over that have seen me before, but there's a lot of people that don't know my show at all over the hobby, and so, yeah, sorry, at the stages, and so it's kind of like building the reputation from scratch, which is always an interesting thing starting over, you know.
Speaker 6:Now the scuttlebutt on this one is this is the last tour for Dixie in this Tupperware party, and why? Why end a good thing? I mean you got to go, and why is this the?
Speaker 7:last. You know I've been on the road 17 years. We never thought that. You know me and my team never thought it would be this long, and save for COVID, when I was off the road for a little bit because everything was shut down. I've been hoofing it for a long time and I figured, you know what, it's time to kind of wind the tour down on the road. And we're looking at taking the show to New York in the fall and sitting it down off Broadway and doing a long run there. So that's gonna, you know, take me off the road.
Speaker 7:But I said, you know, I'm like I'm not going nowhere, I'm just going around. But I thought, you know, I want to kind of wrap it up and start, you know, in where I started, but be able to take the show that I've been doing on the road for the last 17 years. It's really kind of inspired me and inspired so many audience members. I want to take that and put it down in New York and do it that way to kind of book in the whole thing. So that's where I'm going. But yeah, it's. You know I love being on the road, but I think it's just time, you know, every, every chapter of your life ends and a new one begins, and I think it's time to write a new story.
Speaker 6:Let's get serious here for just a second. So Kennedy Center you performed there, right?
Speaker 7:I did. I was very, very grateful. They invited me to do a month of shows last summer and it was great. I mean it was to be able to perform at such a legendary venue and to be able to I mean it was an honor. It was an honor to step foot in those hallowed halls and be amongst the performers that have gotten to be there.
Speaker 6:Now you're not invited back, are you?
Speaker 7:Well, I don't know. If you're aware there's a little bit of a scuttlebutt. Yes, there is. The president has decided that he wants a very specific program, and of which I am not counting myself among, because they have decided that he wants a very specific program and of which I am not counting myself among because they have decided that they are going to curate exactly what he wants to see and not what the patrons want to see, necessarily, or what people are used to. I mean, the thing about art centers is it's going to be diverse program and not everybody's going to like everything that's in there. You're going to have opera and ballet and you're going to have poetry jams and you going to have musicals and plays, and not everything is going to be your cup of tea. But the whole point of it is it's because everybody has different artistic visions and an art center should be able to share all kinds of different points of views and perspective, and the president doesn't seem to think that that's a good idea.
Speaker 6:I think that this is iconic. Seriously, it is the biggest reason that I want to come see you on this run and stages to support you, because this is just amazing that they're trying to even target this kind of production or anything like that.
Speaker 7:Yeah, I mean it was very interesting to kind of be called out basically personally by the president why we can't have. I had done my show there and it was in the fam the name of the theater. There are six theaters in the building and the name of the theater that I performed in was called the family theater. And that's what he, you know he's like, oh, the family. You know we don't want drag shows for families and I was like, well, that's not what was happening.
Speaker 7:It was a family theater, it was my show and it's a show about empowerment and it's also a show you never bothered to step foot into the theater to see. So I don't know what you're talking from, but it's again, you know, it's an inspiring, empowering show and makes people feel good and makes people giggle, and so I'm not sure what's wrong with that. But that is, you know, I'm not able to, not able to fight, pass that thing, so that I'm not going to be about it. But you know what I'm grateful to have been there. The people that brought me in are sticking to the guns and saying thank you so much for being part of our programming and our legacy, and I'm very happy about that.
Speaker 6:Well, I'm happy that you're going to be at Stages 3 April 20th, because that gives us a chance to see you here. I don't have to travel all the way to DC, and see you in some family theater and the Guinness is in her. It was funny.
Speaker 7:Actually, I was doing the show last night and somebody came out after the show and said I got to see you in DC and that's why I came, because it was a lady that lives here. But she's like, I was in DC traveling for work and the show popped up there and I said night because I mean you're neck of the woods.
Speaker 6:You know I have to ask because I don't have a lot of it, but if you have to buy one item of Tupperware, what do I need?
Speaker 7:You know it's all dependent on who you are and what you do. See my tumblers, you'll see, at the program I have tumblers that are with me all the time and they have a seal that you stick a straw in. And so if you're drinking and driving and you hit a baby or whatever, you're not gonna spill your drink because the lid on it is gonna keep anything from spilling, which is so nice, and you can drink right through the lid, which is great. That's something I couldn't be without. I mean, and I put, like you know, my morning vodka right on the bedside table and then with that and then so if the cat on it, it's not going to get hair in it and it's not going to spill over.
Speaker 7:There's that. There's my wine opener. Like you'd be amazed what tupperware has. Everybody thinks it's just plastic bowls, but there's so much different stuff. I have a wine opener that I love because I take it with me in my glove box when I'm driving places and get thirsty and parched. There is a jello shot container that I take my jello shots to church to serve Jesus and everything. There's so many good things that you're going to see the program and you're going to be like I didn't even believe they had all this stuff that I didn't know.
Speaker 6:Alright, I'm there and I'm ordering. Finally, I want to ask Dixie what do you think of Oreo flavored Coke?
Speaker 7:Oh, my God, did you see that? People that know me they know that I love Oreos and I have all kinds of videos up on my social media about different Oreos. Because Oreos have been going through this thing in the last couple of years where they've been making all these different flavors and they had this weird cross-branding thing with Coke where they did Coke-flavored Oreos and Oreo-flavored Coke and the Coke-flavored Oreos. The smell is a bit overwhelming when you open up the package at first, but they actually taste pretty decent, but the Oreo-flavored Coke is an abomination. They should be shaming themselves. They should sit in the corner and cry until they know what they did and what they unleashed on the rest of the world and they need to understand and take that accountability forward.
Speaker 7:Because it is a flavor in your mouth. I had a bottle of it. Let me explain to you. It took me about four days to get through a single like 12 ounces, I think, because it the flavor is. I've had things in my mouth before and this is not one that I would repeat, you know, and I kept it for so long because I kept thinking that, well, maybe if I tried a different way it'll be okay. Maybe if I tried in the morning. Maybe I tried it after I've already been drinking. Maybe, if I try it, you know when it's flat it will be. But no, no, it never improved. It just got worse. It just made the baby jesus cry and it's already so moody. You know you don't want to do anything to make it worse. So, yeah, it was, it was.
Speaker 6:It's something, yeah you know, I I have to confirm. I tried it, it was foul, it was really bad.
Speaker 7:and you've got to, you've got to wonder, because you know, companies this big do all kinds of taste tests. And I want to sequester the people in the room that said, oh, this is a good idea, and that did that taste test and said this is the version you need to put on the market, and I want to smack them upside the head so hard. Oh my Lord, what's wrong with people? They were like, oh yeah, that'll be okay, you know, put that out. Oh no, no, what's wrong with people?
Speaker 6:Well, what is a good idea is to go see Dixie's Tupperware Party at Stages through April 20th, I believe. April 20th yeah, Two weeks, two whole weeks, lots of shows. I even saw there's some on Tuesday, wednesday, thursday. I mean they're filling it.
Speaker 7:Every day of the week. We have Mondays Monday off but we have every day of the week and we've got matinee on Saturday and a matinee on Thursday, which is so interesting.
Speaker 6:You're doing matinees on Thursdays.
Speaker 7:Yeah, yeah, so sometimes and Thursday obviously is very interesting, so it's going to be like a luck of the draw, you know, because they wanted to be able to give people as many opportunities to be able to see the show as possible.
Speaker 6:So they're just like like do shows all the time, so I'm doing a thursday matinee too, okay, according to chris's imdb page, you have been in some of my favorite movies, like scream 2, hellbent, which is this amazing gay horror flick that everybody needs to see. No, that's amazing and the iconic. Of course, Girls Will Be Girls with all of my favorite drag queens.
Speaker 3:Oh my God yeah.
Speaker 6:So I'm wondering, you know, when all of this wraps, if Dixie ever decides that it's time to go, what's next for you? Are you going to pursue more film Are?
Speaker 5:you going?
Speaker 7:to do shows.
Speaker 6:I see you're a dancer, right.
Speaker 7:Yeah, well, I was back when my body moved that way. I'm getting older, so it's a little hard. You know, one of the reasons, one of the things I'm looking forward to about taking the show to New York, is to be with people. You know, new York obviously has a lot of theater, a lot of film and TV, but also has a lot of resources for because I like to create stuff. So I mean resources for because I like to create stuff. So I mean I created dixie. I created all the tours that I've done. I mean I've done four different shows now under the dixie character. Three of them live and then one of them during the pandemic.
Speaker 7:I did a show called dixie's happy hour, which I went into a small theater near where I lived and filmed it, and then we got it streaming to 26 different art centers around the country to bring income in, and so I I you know, and I've done all this stuff as Dixie, but I like to create things and I want to be in a city where I have access to more people, more resources, more ability and opportunities to create other things.
Speaker 7:So I have some things that I'm working on, for sure that are in the early stages and medium stages, and when I get there I'm hoping to throw, you know, throw out some wide nets and meet some people and collaborate on some things. You know, new York is a city that really inspires me, so I don't I don't see myself sitting down for too long and just kind of being lazy, you know. So I'll be doing, I'll be doing the show every night there while I'm there, but also during the day I'll be taking that time to reach out and and create a wider sandbox with bigger toys to play with well, I look forward to seeing whatever comes next for you, because Dixie obviously just a beloved character and just you've had an amazing run.
Speaker 6:I really hope that you kind of do what some. There's another performer that comes through stages a lot, denise Fennell, and she does the sister shows at stages a lot, but she also comes in as Denise sometimes and she'll do shows where she's herself and she'll do ones where she's the sister and it's amazing to watch her branch out and create new things and always kind of spin things out. So it's going to be amazing to see what's next. But I don't ever want dixie to go away. I definitely want her around. We need someone to push this tupperware right here. You know, even though I'm gonna be off the road.
Speaker 7:I'm still gonna be very active on social. I'll still be doing a lot of stuff and and you know and sharing smiles. That's the one of the things that I'm. You know, and you talk to any actor and any actor will say how grateful they are if they get to do a long run of a show. But to be a character that I got to create and that's been kind of inhabited my body now for you know, 23 years, 24 years, it's great. It's great. And the fact that people like her probably more than they like me, she's great. I like her, but I'm very grateful, I'm very lucky to have created something that's left kind of an indelible mark on so many people's hearts, and so I don't foresee her leaving necessarily anytime soon. She's just going to be off the road for a while.
Speaker 6:Well, Chris Anderson, where can we find you? Where can we find Dixie Longate's socials?
Speaker 7:Dixie is all over social. I am very limited social because most of my life I've been her. I started this before social media even existed, so it's actually kind of funny. So all my social is pretty much her, except I have a small, very small instagram handle, chris, and I don't even know what it is chris anderson official, but I don't know, I don't. I've got to look at it because I don't even know you got a resurrection now, because everybody knows dixie but nobody really gives a crap about Chris let's save that Chris Anderson underscore official and you know most of the stuff I post on it.
Speaker 7:it doesn't have a lot of stuff on it, but most of the stuff I post on it is like, oh, a picture of me standing outside an art center that Dixie's about to play. Because she's the dominant force in my life, she gets all the attention. But, yeah, you can find dixie, longgate and on any of the social platforms I'm not on. Interestingly, I'm not on tiktok yet. A lot of people have been like, oh, go on tiktok, doing tiktok. There is a lot of my content on tiktok but none of it is but I've released. People have like, tagged it and and stuff from other platforms.
Speaker 7:But and you know I'm I'm hoping that I will probably invest some time into creating a TikTok platform. If it stays, I mean, nobody knows what the hell is going to happen with it, because every other day there's another. It might be going away, it might be coming, yeah. So, but you know, you never know. I'm on all the old lady platforms Facebook, instagram and a little bit of the Blue Sky account. I don't use X that much because it's just become too divisive, so you know, but I'm on air.
Speaker 6:Well, chris, it was a pleasure to have you, and Dixie, it was a pleasure to have you as well. I am so thrilled. Thank you both for being here.
Speaker 7:Thank you so much. You are very kind, I appreciate that.
Speaker 1:This is KPFT 90.1 FM Houston, 89.5 FM Galveston, 91.9 FM Huntsville, and worldwide on the internet at kpftorg.
Speaker 5:This is Deborah Moncrief-Bell, and today I'm in conversation with an old friend and a wonderful activist, judy Reeves. Judy's been active in the queer community for many years. One of her most recent activities that's taken a great deal of her time is the Gulf Coast Archive and Museum of Gay, lesbian, bisexual and Transgender History, commonly referred to as GCAM. So we're going to go on a trip down memory lane. Judy, first of all, how did you get involved? What was the birth of GCAM?
Speaker 3:Well, it's all Rick Hurt or Rainbow Declan's fault. He sent a missive to HandNet, which was before all of these, you know fancy things and he said where's the gay museum? You know we've got the Museum of Fine Arts and everything. Why don't we have a gay museum? And Brandon Wolf, who directed HandNet, he said, well, let's see if we need one. And so he sent a message out to everyone on the list and said we're going to meet at the Montrose Library at three o'clock on Saturday and if you want to talk about a museum possibility, be there.
Speaker 3:So 13 of us showed up, along with Jim Sears of one institute Brandon had invited to talk to us about how to start a museum, and he gave us the four models of starting up a museum. And we decided to stand alone, because the other choices were in a church which we have a huge atheist community here in a bar and we wanted to educate the children, so we couldn't do that. Or with a university, and some of us have had a bad taste in our mouth from the university collecting memorabilia for individuals. So we decided to stand alone and that's exactly what we did for 25 years.
Speaker 5:What was the first step that you took?
Speaker 3:Well, the first step was to find out how much interest there was in a museum and we just kind of put feelers out and we started putting the papers together for a 501c3. And Bill O'Rourke Fancy Pace Lawrence in Reeses, threw a fundraiser for us at the piano bar. So we made the $500 so we could put in our application for a 501c3. We elected a slate of officers from the 13 of us that were there and we started meeting and the first collection we took in was about six weeks later, because we moved into Bruce and I had a warehouse on Capitol Street.
Speaker 3:So we moved into that warehouse.
Speaker 5:Bruce Reeves yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. And so it was a 3,600 square foot warehouse, so we figured we could donate, you know, 300 or 400 square feet for the collections and meetings and such. We quickly learned that that wasn't enough space, but we had built in the walls and set it up for a display.
Speaker 3:And we opened our first exhibit there on Capitol Street Pride Week of 2000. That was the beginning. The first collection we took in was 56 boxes and I couldn't believe that somebody had 56 boxes in their one bedroom condo and they had lived with them for 12 years because the boxes all had his lover who had died from AIDS complications, stuff, stuff, in it and he couldn't part with them. So he talked to me and he said can I bring you some things? And I went sure, and three Jeep loads later he had it all there and he said I've been walking around this for 12 years now and I have a place to put it where I know it's safe, and so now I can get on with living. And that's when it hit me really hard. And I got really involved with GCAM at that point because I knew we weren't going to be so much a museum as a collection point for the deceased, so the living could get back to living. And that's a lot of what we took in the first couple of years.
Speaker 5:What was your initial interest in doing this work? Why did you think it was important?
Speaker 3:My community has always been very important to me and my stepdad had supported me in it and I was very surprised at that. So he had a gun collection. He had Indian relics and pre-Civil War firearms and a lot of Indian relics and I was raised in a house full of history and he had a keen understanding of the Civil War and of the war between the Indians and the states and so on and so forth and I just caught on to it. So I realized that this was as important as any Indian relic in my house. So I wanted to support this because we had lost so many people to AIDS and a lot of them in our community were leather people specifically not just leather people, but I was more prone to be around that we lost a whole generation.
Speaker 3:I was doing as much dumpster diving of course I was much younger then. I was doing as much dumpster diving as I was shopping in stores for anything I. It was ridiculous. The family would move in and throw everything away because it was not only painted from AIDS but it was painted because their relative was queer and nobody knew it and they didn't want the rest of the family to know it. We did dumpster dives.
Speaker 3:Every time we got a phone call and I realized how much was being lost just in those dumpster dives. Even the voice threw all their pictures away after they appeared in the magazine. So we started saving them or the newspapers, but they threw all their photographs in them in the dumpsters. I couldn't figure out why. I mean, yes, it was in the paper, but it's still a living artifact. I don't know, I just developed a passion for it. My stepdad gave his collection to the University of Texas because he was an alumnus there. He's a football player. I went to see it several years later and I found a pile of rust in the basement. Somewhere they just let it go to a seed, and I just couldn't stand that. Where they just let it go to a seed, and I just couldn't. I couldn't stand that.
Speaker 5:The importance of preserving history is so that years later, people know what has occurred. And, as we are currently having people erased from the internet or access to information, I mean they're even wanting to tell medical journals what they can and can't print. I really appreciate your attitude towards honoring those people that have passed and to preserve these collections. I know you also had a rather extensive drag collection had a rather extensive drag collection.
Speaker 3:Oh yes, and a lot of the older drag queens. The further back you go you'll find out that they were connected to the leather community and, infected or not, they weren't dying out so quickly and they decided to put on a dress and sing a song for a dollar. And those dollars didn't go to other charities as it does today. Those dollars went to pay rent or buy medicine or even food for those who were afflicted with AIDS at that point in time. So our drag queens became very important to us. We had different people, say, at Mary's would sit on a bar stool and jump on the stage when the song was playing and sing a song for dollars, for a drink, and I think that's kind of where the idea was born. So yes, we have a very extensive collection of drags and we are keeping it. I want everybody to know that this change in GCAM is not to narrow down any of the collections that we've had for the last 25 years, but to focus more, to bring it into a scope of primarily leather collections.
Speaker 5:GCAM celebrated its 25th year last October. This change in the organization developed, which was for it to become the heart of Leather Association. You're going to maintain the collection that you have. You're not going to be accepting new collections that are not leather community new collections that are not leather community.
Speaker 3:They're not leather related, but I will assist. If someone has a collection that they need to get rid of, I will assist them in finding the proper place for it. We won't be taking it in ourselves. I'm sure there's probably an emergency down the road somewhere where we'll have to have to take it temporarily, but we won't be actually taking in collections. And you have to remember now or know that when I say leather it doesn't mean someone who's running around in cowhide, it means leather related.
Speaker 3:We have a lot of community organizations that are leather related and the drag queens are a part of that. I mean a lot of your drag queens. Lady Victoria Lust was the first and only real drag queen of that era raised over a million dollars for AIDS, but she was clearly a member of all the leather organizations in town. So we have a display case of primarily her of all the leather organizations in town. So we have a display case of primarily all of her stuff. It was presented to us by Don Gill and the crew of Olympus built the waterproof, airproof, dustproof case for it and it's a beautiful display. But she was one of the drag queens from leather.
Speaker 5:And of course Lady Victoria Luss was the drag name for Dear Marvin Davis, a very precious person who's deeply missed. The museum didn't really have an ongoing space. A lot of times things had to just be stored. You would always bring out things during Pride Month at the festival. There'd be a display.
Speaker 3:We're members of the Texas Association of Museums, which is attached to the American Association of.
Speaker 3:Museums and we have been deemed the first pop-up museum in Texas and possibly, according to the American Association of Museums, possibly the first in the entire United States who had the title of pop-up museums or have pop-up exhibits. Now everybody claims to have a pop-up exhibit, so that's great and I learned fairly early on that I didn't really need a big building that I could pay taxes on and keep up the renovations on, etc. To save this stuff or to show this stuff off whenever possible. It's a lot easier just to pull it out of storage and take it someplace temporarily, either for the day or for. We had an exhibit over at the Health Museum for over a year.
Speaker 3:So we go different places for different reasons and we always make sure our stuff is safe, but it's a lot easier to pull it out of storage than it is to pull it out of storage. I mean, it's the same difference. There's no museum has any room for every single item they have. We have over 35,000 items. No, we never had a building and we didn't really want a building after a while. We have over 35,000 items. No, we never had a building and we didn't really want a building. After a while we learned the ins and outs of pop-up exhibits a lot better from Texas Association of Museums.
Speaker 5:Lloyd Powell is coordinating the transformation and we will invite him on in the near future to talk more about Heart of Leather. But let us go back a little bit. Another thing that Judy has done for many years was part of KPFT and doing radio, first with the show After Hours, and then it morphed into Facets. How did you get involved with After Hours?
Speaker 3:Shortly after After Hours started. I was involved with the Names Project in 1987 and 88. And it was getting ready to make its inaugural tour of the US and Brian Kiever got Houston put on the list of places to stop. So I was volunteer coordinator for that on the board. Buddy invited me onto the show to talk about it because I needed as many volunteers as I could get and it just stuck. I mean, I found a home when I walked into that radio station and was interviewed by Buddy and I never left.
Speaker 3:Buddy was the instigator of After Hours. He talked to the station and they decided to give him a try for a month and it lasted 30 years. Buddy wasn't there all that time. He moved to California but Jimmy Carper came on very early in and I came on very early in and Bruce even came in for a little while. So when Buddy left, jimmy and Bruce took over the helm of it and we all kind of stuck with it and Bruce left eventually.
Speaker 3:I think after a year or two Other people came in. Chris Harrison came in for a while and Jimmy lasted almost 27 years of the show until he became too ill to even attend the airing of it. Actually he was there in January of 2014, just before his birthday, and that was his last show. Then Chris and Wes and I stayed with it for another three years and we shut it down on its anniversary of 30 years and the next week I started facets and it was not meant to be. It was never meant to be what Jimmy and Buddy made that show. Mine was supposed to be TLBTQIA. Whatever related information I did not try to emulate after hours, because nobody could do what Jimmy and Buddy did for that show.
Speaker 5:What is your fondest memory of Jimmy?
Speaker 3:When Stanley, his lover, passed, jimmy inherited a very old house in the museum district and he walked me through that house and said now I want this, this and this. And what he wanted was a column put in the living room, in the entryway, and it was like Jimmy, do you have any idea what that's going to take? He says, well, you can do it. And I took over the care and feeding of his house and had it done in less than a year, completely remodeled to suit him and remodeled the duplex, the upstairs for me. He kept saying, well, what do you want? What do you want? I said it doesn't matter what I want, you're going to live here. And he said, no, you are too.
Speaker 3:I moved into the upstairs of his duplex. I was there almost every day anyway, giving him personal care. It took almost a year and every single single afternoon I would go over to his house, wake him up and we'd go to House of Pies at our booth in the corner and I would tell him everything the contractors did that day. And then I'd go by and show him everything he did that day and he was just like a kid at Christmas. Every single day, every single step that we made in that house. He was thrilled with it and that's one of my fondest memories of him.
Speaker 5:I understand that Jimmy recorded all the radio shows, including some Queer Voices episodes, and that those are now in the archives at the University of Houston.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they still belong to me. It is not a GCAM acquisition. They belong to me. I inherited them and I arranged with Emily Vinson over at U of H. She applied for a grant from NEH to record and transcribe all of these shows, cassettes and so on, because Jimmy and Buddy would do 15-minute cassette pieces and give them as prizes for people who donated to during the sweeps. So I had millions of cassettes and we had several reel-to-reels because if they called a politician or a sheriff's department person or even the police department, they would come into the studio and record for 30 or 45 minutes and then Buddy and Jimmy would cut the best part of that to play on the radio. And Buddy kept all of those reels. So we had a lot of 12-inch and 7-inch and 15-inch reels to be transcribed to. It was done at U of H. She got almost a hundred thousand dollar grant for that and it took two years to do all of that. When it was all said and done. It is on the Heart of Leather Foundation's website under GCAM.
Speaker 3:You can access them and you can research them as much as you want. You cannot download the recordings. You can only download the transcripts. I didn't want people to be able to download the recordings so that they could mess with them. I didn't want them toying with our words because we even called the White House one night. Buddy and Jimmy got to talking about the White House and they called the White House and actually got the secretary on the radio and she wanted to know why he wanted to talk to President Reagan Because he was asleep. And he says it's one o'clock in the morning. He said I don't care, I'm on the radio and I have a question for him. And she asked what the question was. He says I want to know why he can't say the word aid. And she was mystified by everything.
Speaker 5:This is Deborah Moncrief Bell. I've been talking with Judy Reeves, longtime activist and dear friend. Thank you, Judy.
Speaker 3:With a bad memory. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:This has been Queer Voices, heard on KPFT Houston and as a podcast available from several podcasting sources. Check our webpage QueerVoicesorg for more information. Queer Voices executive producer is Brian Levinka, deborah Moncrief-Bell is co-producer, brett Cullum and David Mendoza-Druzman are contributors. The News Wrap segment is part of another podcast called this Way Out, which is produced in Los Angeles.
Speaker 8:Some of the material in this program has been edited to improve clarity and runtime. This program does not endorse any political views or animal species. Views, opinions and endorsements are those of the participants and the organizations they represent. In case of death, please discontinue use and discard remaining product.
Speaker 1:For Queer Voices. I'm Glenn Holt, Thank you.
