Queer Voices
Queer Voices
September 17th 2025 Queer Voices - Brad Pritchett from OUT FOR GOOD, R. Lee Ingalls on Abraham Lincoln, and DANCING LESSONS at the MATCH
This week's show combines the worlds of politics, history, and the arts. First up, we talk with Brad Pritchett, who is being honored this year at the OUT FOR GOOD gala on October 4th. This year, the event will be at the Marriott Marquis in downtown Houston. Brad talks about his career and how he got started in politics, and how he keeps the faith when things are not going well.
In the second segment, we bring in author R. Lee Ingalls to discuss Clarence Arthur Tripp's book THE INTIMATE WORLD OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, as well as the documentary LINCOLN LOVER OF MEN.
Finally, we talk with Michelle Britton and Adrienne Shearer about their production of DANCING LESSONS at the MATCH, which runs through September 21st. It's a show about a man on the spectrum and how he navigates the world.
Important Links:
OUT FOR GOOD INFORMATION - https://montrosecenter.org/event/out-for-good-2025/
LINCOLN LOVER OF MEN - https://www.loverofmen.com/
THE INTIMATE WORLD OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN - https://www.amazon.com/Intimate-World-Abraham-Lincoln/dp/0743266390
Tickets for DANCING LESSONS - https://matchouston.org/events/2025/dancing-lessons
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:
https://www.facebook.com/QueerVoicesKPFT/ and
https://www.instagram.com/queervoices90.1kpft/
This is KPFT 90.1 FM Houston, 89.5 FM Galveston, 91.9 FM Huntsville, and worldwide on the internet at kpftorg.
Speaker 2:You are listening to Queer Voices, which is a radio show on KPFT Houston 90.1 FM and a podcast online that has been part of Houston's LGBTQIA plus community for over five decades. We're going to talk politics, issues, culture and the arts all from an all inclusive, yet queer perspective. Hi, I'm Brett Cullum and I am your tour guide for this evening, wednesday. And the arts all from an all-inclusive, yet queer perspective. Hi, I'm Brett Cullum and I am your tour guide for this evening, wednesday, september 17th. On tonight's episode, I speak with the interim CEO of Equality Texas, brad Pritchett. Brad is being honored at the Montrose Center's Out for Good Dinner and Fundraiser on October 4th at the Marriott Marquis. Brad is a celebrated activist and we talk about what is happening today in a landscape that is not quite friendly to our community. After that segment, I bring in my husband, r Lee Ingalls, to talk about the groundbreaking 2005 book about Abraham Lincoln by Clarence Arthur Tripp, as well as the 2024 documentary Lincoln, lover of Men. Finally, I get to talk with Michelle Britton and Adrian Shearer of Lion Woman Productions. They are putting on a play called Dancing Lessons, which runs at the match through September 21st, so you only have a week left to catch it. It's a love story about a man with Asperger's syndrome, sort of a love on the specter type thing.
Speaker 2:Hi, this is Brett Cullum and today I am joined by Brad Pritchett. He is a well-known political activist here in Houston. He is currently the interim chief executive officer of Equality Texas and that position lasts through December 2025. But he has a long legacy of advocating and rallying for the LGBTQIA plus community. Brad served as a three-term president of the Houston Stonewall Young Democrats, which they helped to identify pro-equality candidates and get them elected to office. He's also worked as a policy and advocacy strategist with the ACLU of Texas, worked on criminal justice reform in Dallas and the Texas legislature. He's a fixture at our political caucus meetings, always strikingly tall, bespeckled model of a man with a confidence, presence and a clear voice. He's going to be honored this year at Out for Good. The Montrose Center's largest fundraiser of the year will be held this time on October 4th at the Marriott Marquis in Houston. Thank you for being here, brad.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me, and what an introduction.
Speaker 2:It's always over the top, but I feel like you deserve it. You're being honored, obviously at Out for Good.
Speaker 3:And one of the things that I always wondered how in the world did you first enter politics? You know, I went to school for communications actually. So I was working in television for a chunk of time I won't say which network, because it's not a good one, but I was working in television and I was interested in being involved in politics and I didn't really know how to get involved. So in Houston, you know you're a queer person, you're trying to figure out what's what there is for you to do, and the Houston LGBTQ political caucus has been around for so long and has such a storied reputation that it was one of the orgs that people were like do you know about this organization? And I started going to meetings and I joined and then that got me thinking about like progressive politics with the Democratic Party and Democratic policies. So I started to get involved in some of the Democratic clubs and I was just one of those people who showed up and would always raise my hand when somebody wanted a volunteer to do something. So this is what I tell people constantly is I was just a person who showed up and when somebody said, does somebody know how to do this, I would raise my hand and say I do, and sometimes it was true and sometimes it was not true and I would just figure it out, because I always figured if the person asking, if anybody knew how to do this, they probably didn't know how to do it. So if I could figure it out, they wouldn't know if it was done the right way or the wrong way as long as it got done. So I just kind of showed up to everything all the time and try to make myself useful.
Speaker 3:And even now when I go to events and a lot of times I have to speak at them I'm always like can somebody give me a job to do? I'd rather like be doing something, doing something, give me something logistical to work on. So that was really kind of my. My thought process was just show up for everything and try to figure out like where you can, where you can do your part. And that's how I ended up at Stonewall and somewhere, young Dems. I was just a member for a long time and then somebody asked me to join that board and then I went from just being on the board to end up being the president of it and I just, you know, anytime there was something that popped up that I really cared about. I would just try to do what I could to engage on it and try to draw other people in. And that's when one day I turned around and realized, wow, I'm like an organizer, and I didn't even know that I was an organizer.
Speaker 2:It was great you know, sometimes showing up is 90% of the battle. I mean, I think that that's absolutely true. So tell me a little bit about Equality Texas. I want people out there that don't know anything about it. What does it do?
Speaker 3:So Equality Texas we're the state's largest LGBTQ advocacy organization. We're almost the oldest, but the Houston LGBTQ Political Caucus beat us by about three years. So the caucus was founded in 1975. Equality Texas, the foundation of Equality Texas, was founded in 1978. And it was literally a group of LGBTQ plus people who came together because they were worried about a budget rider being considered at the Texas legislature that would have defunded schools that allowed LGBTQ clubs to be created on campus. So they came together over that single issue of the ledge. And then the next legislative session some groups merged together, hired a lobbyist to work on LGBTQ rights, and that's kind of where Equality Texas was birthed out of. So in 2006, the name changed to Equality Texas.
Speaker 3:But we are probably best known for the work we do at the legislature. So every two years the legislature decides it's going to take up some bills targeting our community every year. So we're really well known for the work we do there. We have a pretty good track record of stopping most of the worst stuff from getting through the legislature. But beyond that, we're working 365 days a year all across the state of Texas. So we have staff all over the state. We work to make sure folks have skills that they may need to be their own advocates locally. We do leadership development programs. We do public education events. We're launching several very large programs that are going to be running across the state this year in the wake of the legislative session to make sure folks understand what bills passed and what that means for community members and how to mitigate the harm of those bills. So as a whole, we are a political and an advocacy organization that is committed to making sure that the state is the state it should be for LGBTQ plus folks living here.
Speaker 2:That's an amazing mission and I always see you guys headed out to Austin and actually confronting them like face to face. It's actually like a very engaged organization that seems to really do a lot, just in the presence and again showing up 90% of the battle, probably, and fighting for this stuff. Well, how does it feel to be honored by the Montreux Center, and now for good? I love the Montreux Center, first and foremost.
Speaker 3:I don't like spotlights, so they had to really really pressure me into saying yes. But you know I will do everything and anything I can to help uplift the work at the Montreux Center. So I'm honored to be honored. But it also is just one of those spaces that makes me slightly uncomfortable to be in like a position where you have to like be handed an award. Like I said, when I go to events I'm like give me a job to do. I don't want to have to be the person that's in the spotlight, but it's lovely and it's given me an opportunity to work even closer with the folks at the Montreux Center that I get to work with in my role at Equality Texas, but in a different way. So it's nice. We're not stressing about the legislature in our conversations, we're talking about celebration, so that's a nice change of pace for me.
Speaker 2:It's going to be great to get the flowers, so to speak, and to have a moment where you can just kind of celebrate, because this is a really difficult time politically, and I wanted to talk to you a little bit about that, about our current climate and everything and what you're seeing out there. I mean, do you worry about being in politics right now? I mean, we're seeing political violence is on the rise, no matter who you are, and Texas is a crushingly red state. It just seems like. Do you worry about being this visible and this on the cusp of everything?
Speaker 3:It's interesting because, you know, my husband and I've had this conversation a lot, especially recently. I'm no stranger to getting nasty emails or things in the physical mail that show up at the office that call me all kinds of names or make threats against me, but at the end of the day, like I view it as just kind of part of the job. It's always kind of been that way. For folks organizing in LGBTQ rights, there are always going to be people who want to do everything they can to intimidate us into silence or want to try to scare us into, you know, going back into closets. So for me I take it in stride, I mean sometimes. Sure, I will maybe worry about it, maybe I lose a little bit of sleep over it, but I'm not going to let it stop me from doing the things that I know I need to be doing. I think from a broader perspective, you know we've seen in Texas, especially over the last probably five years, this kind of increased vitriol being spewed at our community to the point where we were having, and still are having, people show up at, you know, drag bingos hosted by churches, carrying long rifles and wearing masks, with protest signs and working these anti-LGBTQ activists working lockstep next to white nationalist organizations to protest draft performances, to try to intimidate people from showing up or intimidate venues from hosting anything related to our community.
Speaker 3:At Equality Texas, at least for around the last five years or so, we've been really focused on what security looks like for the community.
Speaker 3:So when we are planning public events, that's part of the conversation is what are we doing to make sure that the venue is as safe as it can be? We work with organizations like Veterans for Equality so that we have people at our events, kind of monitoring who's coming and who's going, and we keep track of who the most visible opposition folks are. We actually have opposition lookbooks that have photos of people, basically breaks down where we've seen them, what they've done, what their modus operandi are, if they're just protesters, if they're disruptors, and we distribute those to folks when they come to things so that they know who to avoid. So for us, you know the climate right now is so much worse than it's probably been in a very long time, but there are still things that we can do to make sure that we're safe and the community safe. So we try to. We try to really just be proactive about safety for all members of the community.
Speaker 2:You know, I even see it at the bar level. I mean it's like everybody has this increased security. Everybody has this feeling of like maybe we're not as safe as we used to be a little while ago. So, and I feel like being transgender now is almost dangerous in and of itself. It's a lightning rod, particularly for black trans women. I think that we had the murder numbers that had been going down a little bit, but now I noticed that they are on the rise again and a lot of these deaths kind of involve guns. And you know, we're both cisgender gay men and I want to be a great ally to the transgender community. So how can we do that from our position? What can we do better to support that part of our community?
Speaker 3:I think as cis, especially cis white men, we have a responsibility to do what we can to not expect trans people to be the people always being visible and always speaking up. It's dangerous Visibility, is dangerous across the board for a lot of folks right now. But one of the things that we've seen is, you know, trans folks in particular, when they are visible, when they turn out and they testify, they're the ones who are getting doxxed way faster than anybody else. So, like opposition folks will try to track down who they are, who they work for, and it's the same when we deal with like protest situations. You know, two years ago at the Capitol we were fighting an anti-LGBTQ bill and the Speaker of the House at the time ordered the entire Capitol building to be cleared by DPS. So they cleared the galleries, they cleared the entire building. We were being forced by these, you know, marching essentially stormtroopers downstairs. They wouldn't let elderly people get to elevators, like it was. It was the worst you could possibly imagine happening in that building, and what made it the worst was the DPS knew who the most visible trans activists were and those were the people they targeted with violence and with arrests. So a very good friend of mine was helping get people out of the building, helping people get down the stairs, and they got jumped by probably seven DPS officers from behind. They were complying with orders, they were helping people move and they just happened to be a very visible trans activist and probably 5'5 and height, like not a huge, not an intimidating person in any way, shape or form, getting slammed to the ground by seven huge DPS officers and one attempting to put their you know, their knee against their neck and the only thing that protected them was their backpack falling and blocking their neck. But we noticed that pattern, that they knew exactly who the most visible trans people were and they went after those people and they were all trans activists and they were people of color.
Speaker 3:So in situations like that, it's also up to us who are cis white people to put ourselves, and sometimes our bodies, in between the law enforcement folks who are being told to attack people like that and the folks that are being targeted.
Speaker 3:And if nothing else, us being there gives people time to get away, and if that means we get arrested or we're the ones that take the brunt of that, we just need to be willing to take that, because too often it targets people who are going to be even more in danger if they get put in jail.
Speaker 3:So, like we know, right now in the state of Texas, they're passing all these. They pass all these laws. One of the laws they passed strictly defines gender in binary, unscientific terms for use across the board. So that includes, like, where somebody is going to be put when they get arrested, going to be put when they get arrested. So even if there are policies in place that would protect trans people, we may see those policies getting questioned by the folks who actually run law enforcement agencies. So, for white cis people, especially white cis men, I think that's really important for us to be looking at how these things are being targeted for trans people and where can we insert ourselves to provide protection and support for the folks who need to be visible and who have to have their voices heard. But maybe we can just be buffers that help protect them a little bit more.
Speaker 2:Well, what are you seeing as the top issues right now and what are you working on as Equality, texas and things like that? What is your main objectives or the top issues that are popping up?
Speaker 3:I mean, I think right now, the number one thing that we're always going to be working on is making sure that the state of Texas isn't weaponizing government against the community, particularly against trans people. We keep seeing how weak and ineffective our state leaders are, and so much so that if Donald Trump says jump, greg Abbott is already in the air and saying tell me when to do it again, daddy, and it's there's no leadership from the state of Texas. It's basically following the orders of this criminal in the White House. So I think part of it is when the Trump administration turns around and lobs out this you know terrible stuff about the queer community and LGBTQ people in general watching and trying to make sure that the Texas administration isn't just parroting it, which they will, and then being prepared for it. How do we make sure that our community is ready for whatever they're trying to do policy-wise? I think the second part of it is you know we had seven explicitly anti-LGBTQ plus bills get passed by the legislature this year six in the regular session, one in special session and part of what we've been doing, part of what we were doing before those bills ever got passed or were even moving through the process was figured out how we could try to chip away at the enforcement of those bills, because a lot of the enforcement is left up to private companies and private individuals.
Speaker 3:So a good example is one of the bills that was passed affected your electronic health records. So when you go to the doctor and you look at something called MyChart, it shows you like, oh, your background, your history, your medical history, and there was a bill that was passed that explicitly said that electronic health vendors had to only put in biological sex assigned at birth, but it didn't specifically say that they couldn't include other things. That bill we figured out who all the vendors were that worked in the state of Texas, for every hospital, ambulance service, private medical facility, dentist, you name it. We found them and we created a list of recommendations and said you may have to comply with this law to the letter, but here are the other things that the law doesn't say you can't do. So do these things and that is like ensuring that people are being called by the right name, that they're being respected in their pronouns, that they know that they are going into their doctor's office fully able to be who they are and one of the largest vendors in the state of Texas, actually, that does most of the hospitals in the state and a lot of the private practices responded to us almost immediately and said let's meet and figure out how we can implement your recommendations. And said let's meet and figure out how we can implement your recommendations.
Speaker 3:So even when these bills are passing and they're bad bills, we're already ahead of them in some ways by talking to the people that have to implement them and saying, fine, you may have to do this stupid thing, but you can do these 12 great things too, and these 12 great things don't cost you anything. And if you're already having to, like spend money to update your system, just do these 12 great things too while you're doing this one crappy thing. So part of it has been us thinking about how do these bills get implemented and where do we get ahead of them before they actually get signed and implemented in law? And we're working on that right now with the most recent bathroom bill talking to cities and school districts and political subdivisions and giving them things the state of Texas did not give them when they passed this bill and kind of just left it open to interpretation. Well, we're interpreting it for them now and giving them an interpretation that protects our community and hopefully they'll take it.
Speaker 2:Hopefully. Well, one of the things I wanted to ask you just generally. I think that we all feel this like malaise or something. It's this time, in this era, where the sanctity of politics feels violated. It feels like our vote in our own state is being obliterated by redistricting and things like that, and you mentioned the seven laws that we got passed that were anti-LGBTQIA+, and do you have faith that things will get better and how can we get there and what can you do, as just an average person, to help with this mission?
Speaker 3:I get this question a lot right now yeah, why do you keep getting up and doing the work you do? I mean, I would I say this to everybody like I, I have to have faith, otherwise I couldn't do the work that I do. But my faith isn't necessarily in the state of Texas, it's in the people, it's in the community that we're all a part of, because even when things get and historically you know there's precedent for this when the world itself gets bad, our community rallies together to support one another. So I think that, as queer people, we have that. We have that comfort at least or we should have that comfort in the back of our minds that no matter how bad the world gets, no matter how much they try to target us, our communities always find ways to support each other and survive it. So I think that's one of the things that I really hold on to is just knowing that there have been battles that have been fought in the past that were harder than the moment that we're in, despite how hard this moment feels, and our community came through it and we did it because we were together and we were unified and knew that survival was the purpose and the point. So I mean, I have hope always that it's going to turn around. I think the way it turns around is people have to just stay engaged, and I'm one of those people who I believe in, I believe in the power of your vote, but I also recognize how frustrating it gets for people to be like don't forget that everything relies on your vote, right, because we all do it, and then elections don't necessarily go our way. I do believe, like, voting is a big part of it, but I just think engagement and involvement has to be a huge part of it as well, and that is also just going into these places and not pulling punches.
Speaker 3:When people are lying, we need to call them liars. When people are, we shouldn't say, oh, you're spreading misinformation. It's like you're outright lying and you know you're lying. At some point it's going to get to a space where we have to take the gloves off. And I think about all the work that was done around the HIV crisis, when members of the community were dying and the government didn't care and knew it was happening and weren't being pushed to do anything. And you had organizations like ACT UP shutting down the opening night of the San Francisco Opera, right and you had establishment LGBTQ orgs who were like you can't do this, oh my God, they're never going to help us. But it was that like force. It was going into these spaces and saying we're going to do whatever we feel is necessary to make sure our community is safe and survives. That really did make the difference.
Speaker 3:I mean, you can just on how the country and the pharmaceutical industry responded to the AIDS crisis because of organizations like ACT UP. You can kind of like see when those types of disruptions started to happen. Those types of protests were taking place. I mean Peter Staley climbing onto the roof of the FDA and dropping the banner and getting arrested for it. Suddenly we started to see progress. Suddenly, medication started to be developed. Suddenly, it became affordable for people.
Speaker 3:Suddenly, the government had no choice like where it's going to be the same. We're going to have to do things in a different way. We're going to have to be even louder than we have been and at some point things will shift back in a direction where our community is not going to feel as attacked as we are right now. But it is going to require vigilance. It's going to require engagement from people. Folks can't just go to brunch and forget it's happening and just be like well, I'm going to live my life, because at no point are you safe from what's being targeted towards the community, no matter who you are At some point. If you're a queer person, they're going to come for you too. So it's better for us to be ahead of it and united against it than to be surprised when it happens.
Speaker 2:So let me ask you this what is next for you? The interim role, the CEO role, ends in December 2025.
Speaker 3:What happens to Brad Pritchett? What's your next move? I don't know. I have no idea. Maybe I'll just sit on a beach for a little while and enjoy the ocean. Sounds of the ocean, put a shell to my ear? I honestly don't know. My goal for right now is to ensure that Equality Texas, an organization that I've worked with for a long time I've worked for for a while, but I've worked with for a very long time I care deeply about the organization and I want to make sure that, whatever comes next for it, it's set off on a good path to continue doing the essential work that it does every single day, because, having been a part of this org for almost five years now on the inside of it, I recognize what it means for community members and all the work that gets done that nobody ever hears about, but how crucial that work can be as well. So I don't know, one day I guess I'll retire, but I don't feel like I'm old enough for that yet.
Speaker 2:So you're definitely not old enough for that. Yet I hate to tell you you're going to have to be showing up a lot longer.
Speaker 3:But it sounds boring.
Speaker 2:I don't know how people do it, so it does sound like it could be a little bit more low key than what you're experiencing right now, but I'm sure it's a fight and I'm sure that you probably have earned at least a solid couple of weeks on the beach. But thank you, brad Pritchett, for everything that you do. I mean, obviously, the Montreux Center honoring you at Out for Good, which is October 4th, the Marriott Marquis in Houston. You can purchase tickets at the Montreux Center's website, and I can't think of anybody more deserving for this recognition than you. I mean, I know they're probably going to have to give you a logistical job to get you to show up, but I'm excited that they're honoring you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, tables, give me something to do. I'll hang decorations whatever you need. Don't tell Avery that because she might actually take me up on it, but I'll do whatever I need to do to help with that event. I love the Wanderer Center, so yes it'll be a good time.
Speaker 2:It'll. It's always a great time and I'm glad that we get to celebrate you and thank you for addressing some of the stuff. That this is a hard time, I mean. I think that you know it's. I am ready for a good party and I am ready for a good celebration of all. That's great, because it just feels like the weight of the world has been heavier than ever around this time. So out for good, Definitely on my radar.
Speaker 3:So I mean, we need more queer joy right now, and this is a good opportunity to find some Amen.
Speaker 2:Hey, there, it's Brett and Lee again, and we are here to talk about some history. This week we read a book with part of a book club that we are in, by a man named Clarence Arthur Tripp. It was called the Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln. Now, what's important to know about this book is that it was published 20 years ago and in five.
Speaker 2:Tripp was a researcher in the field of sexuality mainly, but he was also a history buff. He was a Lincoln scholar and he was mostly known for his partnership studying sex with Alfred Kinsey, and Tripp was the author of the runaway bestseller, the Homosexual Matrix. Well, what happened with this guy is that he devoted the last 10 years of his life to an exhaustive study of Abraham Lincoln's writings, and he wanted to prove that he was basically a two on the Kinsey scale, which meant that he was pretty much homosexual, except for he did marry Mary, todd Lincoln. He obviously had four kids, so we can't say he was exclusively homosexual, but this was a book that Lee actually picked for our book club, and I wanted to ask you first, why did you pick the intimate world of Abraham?
Speaker 5:Lincoln book club and I wanted to ask you first, why did you pick the intimate world of Abraham Lincoln? So I'd heard a lot of things about this part of his life, but we'd not read anything or really researched it in any way. So I thought, with the book club and this book coming into my line of sight, I thought, okay, so this is a good one. I like history, I like telling of the real tale of people and some of those details that aren't commonly known. So this is something about Lincoln that's been rumored, not commonly known. I wanted to get something by someone who did the research that was either going to confirm it or deny it one way or the other. So that's kind of how I became aware of it and why I recommended it.
Speaker 2:Well, I think the significance of Clarence Arthur Tripp is that he reframed the discussion. I think that he really introduced to scholars and things like that this idea that Lincoln's well, basically the love of his life was a gentleman named Joshua Speed, who he spent a lot of time with early on in his life and even later. I mean, they definitely stayed in contact throughout his entire life and lived together and shared a bed for four years.
Speaker 5:Yeah, when he was a young man.
Speaker 2:Well, some people argue that bed sharing was common back then, but that length seems a little bit longer than what you would expect. I mean, what would you think of two guys that shared a bed for?
Speaker 5:four years. Yeah Well, a couple of things that make it. They make it sound unusual, but and we weren't there so we can't really say what was usual and not unusual for the time. But it does seem to be a little bit unusual for them to share the bed for that length of time when other options were available to Lincoln and the beds back in those days were small and Lincoln was kind of a big guy, which they did talk about, and the fact that even for that time other people found it unusual that they were choosing those sleeping arrangements Now there were basically three people that CA Tripp cited as basically lovers of Lincoln.
Speaker 2:There was David Derrickson, who was the son of a owner of a general store that Lincoln worked at early in his life, and they shared lodgings as well a bed. And then, of course, joshua Speed is a big one. There's Elmer Ellsworth, who I think is really interesting. It was probably unrequited from what I understand, but something kind of interesting about him that you always talk about is he was the first person to die.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, yeah, so, yeah, okay, yeah, so right, he was the first person to die in the Civil War, or they credited him with that, but yeah, so Lincoln was very infatuated with him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was devastated when Elmer was killed, basically. And then, of course, tripp cites a lot of things. Abraham Lincoln was a fan of a good, dirty joke. Who knew that he did off-color humor?
Speaker 5:Yes, he certainly did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he was emotionally distant from a lot of the women in his life, um, and of course we know those women as ann rutledge, mary owens and of course, his wife and firstly lady mary todd lincoln, so there was a lot of interesting stuff about those people as well.
Speaker 5:it was kind of a reoccurring theme in the letters and articles and written about him during that day. So this is not speculation. This is something that comes directly out of people that were writing about him during that time frame that he just did not seem to be that engaged with women that were around him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which historically might not be that out of the ordinary, just simply because I think that men generally socialized with men in that time and women generally socialized with women. It was very not a lot of crossing there. You didn't have a lot of friends that were of the opposite gender and things like that.
Speaker 5:So the thing that's kind of difficult to extract from everything that we read was you know what was common for that day, you know what was considered normal, or you know I always talk about. You cannot fault people for living in the time that they lived in. So what was, what did his time look like, and how how much of this is actually relevant for that time period or not?
Speaker 2:Well, and one of the things that we did watch to help us with that particular issue was we watched a new or newish documentary. It's called Abraham Lincoln Lincoln, lover of men. It was released in 2024. And it really kind of takes the Clarence Arthur trip argument and puts it into a little bit of you know talking head style documentary talking about that and they they kind of act out some of it with the Joshua speed and the Lincoln thing and make it a little bit more provocative, true, true, and they try to answer the question.
Speaker 5:So in this book, a little bit more about the book itself. So he worked on this book for 10 years. He finished the draft of this book, which my understanding is this is the draft. He never did do his final edits to it and when you read the book, or if you read the book, you will find it's a little bit difficult to read from that. For that reason it doesn't seem to have a clear overall arc from the start to the end and he never really gets to where he's saying this is what this message means and how it should be translated. So that's kind of missing and the show that we watch kind of does take that then and says so this is what he said and what he saw, but this is what it really means and adds an opinion to it that you don't really get from the book itself.
Speaker 2:I think he was really trying to be academic and I think that that was one of the problems that our book club had.
Speaker 5:It's a dry read. Dry read, yes, and because it was never finished, it doesn't have that finished quality.
Speaker 2:Well, obviously he passed away. Tripp died in 2003 due to complications of AIDS and this was basically published in a rough draft form. They did not edit or do anything else like that and they put a couple of things in there to kind of support. They had a very long introduction by Gene Baker 80 something pages. That kind of talks about how this work integrates into the study of Lincoln and the Lincoln scholars and things like that in this whole debate about Lincoln sexuality.
Speaker 2:And then you get into the meat of the book, which is divided into several chapters and it goes through different people and figures and things like that.
Speaker 2:And then there is a dissent by a gentleman named Michael Burlingame, who kind of refutes what Tripp says and kind of shoots some holes in his argument that Lincoln was actually a Kinsey 2 on the scale. And then there's also a purely psychological perspective written by Alice Flinnessy. So she definitely she supports the idea that he was bisexual, but she may not be as adamant about what as CA Tripp was. So it's an interesting discussion and I think that one thing that you and I always talk about is history and is homosexual history suppressed, and that's one of the things that I think that this book kind of brings up is that all of these things are in front of us. We have these letters, we have these facts about Joshua Speed and the relationship that Lincoln had, the fact that he was a virgin until he married Mary Todd Lincoln which was, by the way, he was 33 years old Not very typical of a guy Should retain that for a while, but historians really didn't like this idea.
Speaker 5:No, and I think that that's one of the convenient truths of those days, and even as recent as my grandfather's generation. But these are subjects that are not talked about in polite society, if you will. So they might know them or suspect them, but they don't talk about it, and when a person dies, then it's really easy to forget those details and let them slip under the carpet without anybody thinking about them again, and that might be what we're seeing here as well. It's a part of his life that people that knew him while he was alive knew it, didn't really talk about it except in whispers, and then when he passed away, it just all that stopped.
Speaker 2:Kind of like whitewashing, but I would call it straightwashing. Yes, yeah, they have made it a little bit straighter than it was.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and so that kind of gets to the question. Maybe I'm jumping too far ahead, you know. So arguably most people would agree that Lincoln was one of the best, if not the best, presidents of our nation. So how does this change that conversation that this is?
Speaker 2:in fact true. How does that change the conversation? I always think, you know, we hang our hopes on people like Pete Buttigieg as possibly being the first gay president, that he might have a chance to do that. And then here is this historical kind of anomaly of maybe there was already a gay president, but, let's be honest, he didn't define himself this way. Nobody did back then, no. One of the things that really surprised me about when we watched Lincoln Lover of Men documentary movie is that, you know, gay is a pretty modern concept. We didn't really have a way to define it and I think that sometimes, even in your book you touched on that. Like, growing up you didn't have a sense of what gay was. No, no, you didn't have a definition for that.
Speaker 5:Even though there were elements of it around me, I never associated myself with those elements. I never saw myself in that. Yeah, you're right. In fact, the word homosexual itself became into being after Lincoln's presidency.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it wasn't even recognized as anything and it wasn't really talked about and it wasn't something that Lincoln would have defined himself as, Whereas somebody like a Pete Buttigieg obviously that is his identity. I mean, that's a part that we cannot change, but in relation to history it's interesting to think about these possibilities that we might have a hero already in there.
Speaker 5:Yeah, well too, because I think the president that was right before Lincoln. I don't recall his name. Rumors are that he was as well. He was never married, so he was a bachelor and again, it might be the one right before him. It was certainly one before Lincoln. I don't recall his name.
Speaker 2:Well, and it's hard to ascribe that to people, like we said, because we don't have any of the facts. I mean, they're not here to ask. Obviously, james Buchanan was actually the president before Lincoln and he was the only president to have been a lifelong bachelor. So there you go. Maybe gay men were really popular during this time of American history.
Speaker 5:Yeah, well, and again you talk about the time that they lived in and that wouldn't have been talked about.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, it was wild to think that I mean James Buchanan not having a first lady, you know.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's kind of interesting because we really do have a lot. I think Mary Todd Lincoln is having a moment with O'Mary on Broadway and a lot of people playing her and a lot is being made of her mental state during this time which she was book was kind of.
Speaker 5:I wouldn't say it's unkind to her, but it certainly revealed parts of her that I've never heard before.
Speaker 2:Well, what was interesting in the book? In the Clarence Arthur Tripp book? It really paints kind of an unflattering picture of her as like an opportunist that she was basically marrying for power, for money and doing these kind of like almost con artists type things with federal money and stuff, and it was very weird. It really reminded me a lot of some of the problems that we see maybe today. You know misappropriation of government funds and using it for something else and you know all these different kind of strange things that seem like modern problems but they're really not.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it almost seemed like oh, we were. We have been here before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I mean again, I've always been a fan of the Mary Todd Lincoln story just because it was interesting to me. I think she had a lot of challenges and I don't think that she also was diagnosed very well for her psychological or psychiatric issues back in the day and that was another thing is back in the day we didn't have modern, modern pharmacology to address things like depression or anxiety or bipolar disorder or anything like that. And it looks like as a couple, abraham and Mary Todd maybe had some of those issues and they talked about Lincoln having very bad depressive issues a lot.
Speaker 5:Especially after that one gentleman passed away. He was very depressed for a long time. In fact, they put him on suicide watch and took everything away from him that he could commit suicide with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. It's amazing to look at all of that as a thing. So would you recommend the Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln as a book to read?
Speaker 5:Okay. So, yes, yes, I would, but not for entertainment purposes because, as you said, it's a difficult read. It does give you some insight into the actual history Because it was an unfinished work. You can definitely tell that when you read the book. So if you want the information, yes, read the book. If you want to be entertained, this might not be the book for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a very academic book and it feels like it's addressed at Lincoln Scholars. I enjoyed it and I read the whole thing. I think a lot of the people that we were in the book club with they put it down after a certain point. But I actually slogged through the whole thing because to me I guess I was a history major in college partially and I just really kind of thought, okay, this is neat. But it wasn't a history per se, it was more of a kind of psychological essay about maybe his sexual intentions and orientations and things like that. So there wasn't a lot, there was no narrative, there was no nothing that you could hang anything on. Right.
Speaker 2:So I think, but I think that if you're really interested in this topic, the movie Abraham Lincoln, Lover of Men does a good job of kind of taking the book and summarizing it yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, take them Exactly.
Speaker 5:It follows the books, or the book pretty much. There are some things that they left out, but it does then add the opinions and talk about what was coming for the day. So, yeah, if you're going to read the book, you should actually see the show as well. Well, it's a good reinforcement.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I think if you're going to choose one over the other and you're not going to spend time doing both, I would say pick the documentary. Yeah, I agree, probably a little bit more entertaining and short.
Speaker 5:A couple hours You're done the book. It'll take you several days.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not a fast read but again an important work and definitely one that we should recognize. And a big thank you to Clarence Arthur Tripp for blazing the trail on this whole discussion and reframing the idea of the way that the world saw Abraham Lincoln and possibly saying that he was at least bisexual, if not homosexual, and that he would have been a queer voice back in his day and ended the Civil War and freed, you know, the slaves and did all of these amazing things and became one of the, you know, most influential presidents, probably the most influential president of our time, yep, yep Of our nation's history, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 5:And it goes back to that phrase that you know, I like so well, from the 1980s we are everywhere, not always seen, but we are there, and this is a good illustration of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's a good point. It definitely gives you some hope and some faith that we have been changing the world and have been a part of the world, and even though we probably aren't recognized as such all the time. But true, we're there, all right. Well, is that about wrap our discussion on Abraham Lincoln?
Speaker 5:It does, capturing our history.
Speaker 2:Yes, all right. Well, we'll be back next time with something that hopefully just as interesting. Yeah, I'm Brett Cullum, and today I am joined by two women working with Lion Woman Productions. I have the director of their current show, dancing Lessons, by Mark St Germain Her name is Michelle Britton and I have Adrienne Shearer, who she's in the production and she's choreographed the dancing in the show as well. Lion Woman Productions brought us the phenomenal Playhouse Creatures last year, which showed a dramatic vision of women acting in history, and now this new show, dancing Lessons, runs September 11th through the 21st 2025 at the Match, and I don't know why I felt like I had to include the year there, but hey, in case you are listening to this in the future. But thank you both for being here. I'm so excited to talk to you about Dancing Lessons.
Speaker 6:Thank you. Thank you for having us.
Speaker 2:Tell me a little bit about the show this year. What is Dancing Lessons about?
Speaker 7:It's about a man with Asperger's and his what I like to say, his dogged determination to learn to dance. Because he has a very public potentially horrifying public event coming up an awards dinner and so he seeks out someone to teach him to dance, and he's pegged to this former Broadway dancer who, as it turns out, is now disabled. And so it's this. It's beautiful, it's joyous, it's hard, because we get to walk in his world and learn more about what it is to be somebody on the spectrum who has to navigate a world that really doesn't accommodate that. And then it's also I think this is my tagline I think it's about, when it comes to normal, we're all on the spectrum, because it really is about how both of them have these huge struggles in their life, and I think I don't want to give away too much, but they attempt to connect as human beings and there's a tremendous amount of power in connecting with another human being and it can be very healing. So, and it's a great, it's a nice little script.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it is not at all what I was expecting, because I just I always thought I'd be like shall we dance? I mean, I thought it was maybe like that, and now you've given me this whole idea. It sounds much deeper and much more resonant, so I am glad. And it obviously makes it so smaller cast, this time only three people. Is that right? Because I know, are you in it?
Speaker 7:I don't. Yeah, adrian actually appears in it. I don't want to say too much but it's. But you'll love it when you see it the way we've incorporated her expertise and her artistry and then she does have her own theater that and professionally helps assess people on the spectrum and also with special needs. I don't need to talk too much about that, she can talk about that. But there is this beautiful I'm losing my words here but there's this beautiful affinity or sync between these two things dance and the ability for dance to help heal and movement and people that are on the spectrum in particular. That's what this play is about. She's, she, adrian, is part of how we've crafted this show to show how dance can heal and be a part of healing well, adrian, tell me a little bit about your work.
Speaker 2:Tell me about, like, what you do, and uh, yes, so I.
Speaker 6:I met michelle uh recently at movement workshop and she asked if I'm a dancer and expressed she was looking for a dancer and choreographer for this upcoming convention. Having no idea it was really fate that brought us together. Having no idea my background with the autistic population, so I have been serving the autistic population as an adaptive arts specialist and educator since 2014. And in 2019, I founded Alliance Theater, which is a neurodivergent Houston-based theater. We produce issue-based shows and we serve adults primarily on the autism spectrum, but we have a little bit of everybody. And the reason I started Alliance is because I saw a need for training in the arts for autistic individuals who are incredibly talented and just needed a platform, just needed somebody to give them that opportunity.
Speaker 6:And when I first began my work with the autistic population back in 2014, it was at a little middle school. I had six middle school boys and I was well not sure what to do. To be honest, I wouldn't either. I had never worked with a population before and I was given a set of goals for each student social goals that they had to meet. And you know, having a BA in theater, I thought, well, let's put on a show, because I know how to do that. And so magic things started happening. They started really developing empathy and learning how to express that empathy and learning how to understand these characters that they were playing, feeling more confident, feeling more themselves and really empowered. And so we started meeting these social goals through the power of theater and dance and movement. And when I saw that, I was hooked and I haven't looked back since.
Speaker 2:So that's a testament. I mean, the arts really are something a little bit more than just entertaining people. I think it is a lot about healing people and making them more confident and willing to do more. I mean, I think that growing up I know my parents were always just horrified by the fact that I was taking acting classes and things like that. You know, they're like you know, no, you just take accounting, right. But guess what I've used more of in my life, you know? So there you are Definitely one of those. But particularly with people on the spectrum, I can see how it would be very effective treatment and things like that, because it is about communicating in different ways through movement and things like that. That would kind of be appealing for that. But you've got two actors in this. You've got Katrina Ellsworth and Brad Gertz, who are two of my favorite actors in Houston. How did you cast this and did either of them have any dance experience before they came in? Because I'm not aware of it.
Speaker 7:Well, I think I mean both of them move well, but Katrina is a Pilates instructor and so there's an alignment of some of her skills and both of them yeah, both of them move well. But it was, it was important to me to. I wanted to give a sort of a, a very in again, I apologize my words. I wanted to go more in depth in the rehearsal process then, so we expanded it, we had a longer rehearsal process, we used improv, we used lab and movement again with my friend, jamie Garner, who's now based in Australia, so she did a Zoom, a series of Zoom workshops with us and she's going to take one more look for us.
Speaker 7:I worked again with Deborah Hope on intimacy and the actors have expressed delight really in. Oh, these are additional skills I can add to my skill set because I've always been an actor first. So creating an actor friendly rehearsal process is a goal for me. I don't know everything right, but this has been a particular, it's been a creative highlight in my life. Gotta say the the collaborators I have and I do. I know brad and katrina personally and I love their work. I didn't, I did hold auditions and and they ended up being, I thought, the best match and actually you know if, if for one reason or another they couldn't have worked out, there were other great people that I could have cast. Yeah, always.
Speaker 7:It's not just about what they deliver on stage, it's how they are, how they behave professionally, the grace that they allow when stuff you know, some cue goes wrong or we have to start over yet again on a light thing. They're just very, they understand the process and they're with you Really, which, I feel, all of the designers and the creative artists on this project. They signed on and they have automatically brought their passion and their expertise and it's been a true collaboration, because whatever I envisioned in my head has changed substantively, not in the vision but in how it's realized. And that is to the. I'm very grateful for the humbleness to be open to these incredible voices that are saying, hey, what if we did it this way? They get it. They understand where I want to go with the show.
Speaker 7:Adrienne God. All I had to do was describe Well, I'm thinking something, something, and a lot of it was tryout, because what she is doing in the show is kind of a takeoff of what's in the show. We haven't changed any dialogue or anything, but she really is realizing some emotional situations for us and, like I said, helping us understand the power of dance to connect you to another human being, and I would just give her like a suggestion or say, well, it's kind of like this, and then she'd come back with this amazing like wow, that's really good. You know you get it. So yeah, it's been easy. It's like you can order art.
Speaker 6:It's delivered to you by this powerful, powerful woman. So, yeah, it's been a really good collaboration. Thank you, michelle. Yes, For me, it's really been a wonderful experience. For me. I haven't been on stage since 2018 because I've been so devoted with you know, running things over at Alliance, so it was so nice to have you come to me with this project, especially concerning a subject I'm so very passionate about, and one of the things that I've loved about the experience is how open you are as a director, to collaboration and just thinking so outside the box and willing to try several different things and experiment in different ways, and the rest of the crew has been that way as well. So gracious, very humble, and it's just been a wonderful experience, yeah that's gosh.
Speaker 7:I really, I almost look forward to. You know, in the rehearsal process there were times where we, where there still are a couple of gaps where, hmm, this isn't happening, how do we solve it? And that's the stuff that I'm really enjoying the most is those big question marks. Oh, this isn't working like we thought it would. What are we going to do? And because I know I've got like eight brains that are going to come together and solve it. And it's fascinating and it gets solved.
Speaker 7:It gets solved and it gets realized in a better way. So the creative process I just Brett, if you haven't had a chance to be on stage in a while, you know that's wonderful, it's a wonderful opportunity and it's not always like that, but it really is a hallmark of the brand I want to bring with Lion Woman is we make it actor friendly and we make it about people first. So every time I come back to that it helps inform me about a particular decision here, there or yonder.
Speaker 7:And you know you can't do it all, but it's. I do think that's a niche Sometimes. People, it goes without saying we want to treat you fairly and all this kind of stuff. I do think it's kind of a niche idea to say, no, I'm really not interested in doing theater just for the sake of theater. I really want it to be a kind people-first experience and I want the audience to walk away hopefully just feeling great about the show they just saw and really opening their hearts, maybe a little bit more. And this show is definitely for, I would say, neurotypical people. It's to give you some. I mean, of course, everybody's welcome, but it really is a walk that most of us do not take. So you get to find out a lot more and we've made it a bit experiential. We've made it experiential for the audience in a good way.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm looking forward to it. Obviously, September 11th through the 21st at the match. Which match auditorium are you in? One this okay, so match box one small space yes but this is the intimate space and it's great, and they have good air conditioning, especially this time of year.
Speaker 7:Oh my gosh, yeah and a jewel, just a jewel of a set, so oh oh, yeah, you do.
Speaker 2:You always have great sets, yeah, so, and obviously Lion Woman Productions, and you do one show a year right now. Is that right oh?
Speaker 7:that's. That's what we're able to do, yeah.
Speaker 2:OK, all right, so I will.
Speaker 7:It's always associated with community outreach. That's another part of the mission is to align that, so we do. Last time for Playhouse Features, we did three different events.
Speaker 2:I remember.
Speaker 7:Yeah, and this time we have two plus. We haven't been able to work it out yet, but I'd like to be a part of a fundraiser where we could collaborate for Alliance Theater. So there would be three again, three community.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, awesome, well, thank you both so much. I appreciate you taking the time to talk about dancing lessons, and I will be there this week.
Speaker 7:Hey, we look forward to seeing you. Yeah, yeah, we'll hoist a glass.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, we will definitely do that. Oh yes, we will definitely do that. The Marriott Marquis in downtown Houston on Walker Street. You can get tickets through the Montreux Center's website, located easily enough at montreuxcenterorg. The event is on October 4th and starts at 7 pm. It will honor Brad Pritchett and Atlantis Narcisse. If you are interested in Clarence Arthur Tripp's book, it is called the Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln. You can find that anywhere books are sold. Lincoln Lover of Men is a documentary it was made in 2024, and it is available through streaming outlets like Amazon or Apple.
Speaker 2:We also talked about dancing lessons in this episode and that runs through September 21st at the Match in Midtown. Lion Woman Productions presents it and tickets are available at the Match website or through the Lion Woman Productions site. Do not forget this weekend. The Flux Houston Pool Party will be held on September 20th at the Heights House Hotel that is on Cavalcade Street and will start at noon. It is free to attend, but definitely register with Flux Houston. Look for them on Instagram. The Montrose Country Club is going to be the site for a fundraiser for Cubbies, an LGBTQ softball team. That will happen on Saturday from 3 pm until 6 pm at the Montrose Country Club. Now, if you are a ballet fan, out at. The Ballet will be held on September 26th. Thank you for listening to Queer Voices. We will be back next week.
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 4: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 products.
Speaker 1:For Queer Voices. I'm Glenn Holt, Thank you.
