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Renowned historian Martin Duberman reflects on a full life in ‘Reaching Ninety’
New memoir looks back at Stonewall, efforts to ‘cure’ homosexuality
Renowned queer historian, playwright, author and LGBTQ activist Martin Duberman, 93, began writing stories when he was four. “They still exist,” Duberman, Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus at City University of New York (CUNY), told the Blade in a telephone interview. “They’re with my papers at the New York Public Library.”
Duberman doesn’t understand what drove him to create. “I’d write these moralistic tales,” he said, “hand-sewn inside covers. About how Alice learned to do what her mother told her to do.”
Duberman who has written some two dozen books as well as plays, hasn’t stopped writing.
Name most anything or anyone and he’s written about it: from the Stonewall Uprising to actor and civil rights activist Paul Robeson. His memoir “Cures” recounts how mental health professionals tried to “cure” him of his “homosexuality.”
When he was 70, he wrote “Haymarket,” a novel set in 1886 in Chicago during protests by labor activists.
His newest book “Reaching Ninety,” is a memoir. In it, Duberman recalls the people, events and work of his life – from coming out to his student years – to his relationships to his beloved puppy Emma (named after iconic feminist and anarchist icon Emma Goldman) to aging.
In “Reaching Ninety,” Duberman quotes the dictum “aging is not for sissies.” But, “The trouble is that I am one,” he adds, “It’s part of my cultural heritage.” There’s a thread running through his work, Duberman, who founded CLAGS: CUNY’s Center for LGBTQ Studies, the first university-based LGBTQ research center in the United States, said. “I’ve been trying to reinvent historical writing.”
It’s essential if you’re an historian and you’re presenting an account of past events, to remain true to the known evidence, Duberman said. “But you have to be clear,” he added, “the evidence that has come down to us is partial and skewed.”
At the beginning of his career as an historian, Duberman wrote with a more traditional view of history: that history could be known and chronicled objectively. As if the historian’s background had no impact on how they wrote history.
Duberman’s early work was well-received. His 1961 biography “Charles Francis Adams, 1807-1886″ won the prestigious Bancroft Prize.
But, as he matured personally and professionally, Duberman began to question the pretense of objectivity. He came to see that subjectivity is an essential part of writing history.
“The historian – with their own background – in their own time – is always present in the history they write,” said Duberman, who earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1957.
Historians must adhere to the evidence, Duberman emphasized. “But, they need to decide to come clean about who they are even, in part, to write in the first person. To explain their reaction to evidence.”Historians’ reactions to the evidence they uncover about the past could impact how they write history, he noted.
Historians don’t always know the full extent of how their backgrounds contribute to their interpretations of history. But they should take it for granted that at least some of their eras and views are present, Duberman said.
“To me, the choice comes down to how explicit I should be,” he said, “and how am I going to make it known.”
This was a new way of thinking and writing about history. Take Duberman’s 1972 book “Black Mountain: an Exploration in Community.” In the 20th century, Black Mountain College was a community for artists. But it was, as per the times, homophobic. A faculty member of Black Mountain was arrested for having sex in a car with a minor, Duberman writes in “Reaching Ninety.” He was let off with a suspended sentence. He became an “instant pariah,” resigned immediately and no one from the community at the college offered any help, Duberman writes.
When writing his Black Mountain book, Duberman felt compelled to come out as gay. To be, as an historian, transparent about how his biography impacted his view of history.
“It’s hard to think well of a place that could cooperate as fully as Black Mountain did in an individual’s self-destruction,” Duberman wrote in his Black Mountain book about how the college treated the gay teacher, “indeed to have assumed it as foreclosed.”
“But perhaps I exaggerate, a function of my own indignation as a homosexual, a potential victim,” he added.
In 1972, when the book was published, Duberman’s coming out in his reaction to an incident in the history of Black Mountain College received mixed reviews.
He was denounced in historical journals. “The New York Times reviewer dismissed my coming out as a vaguely unclean bit of business,” Duberman writes in “Reaching Ninety.”
“Other people were well-disposed toward the book,” Duberman said, “they were academics, not historians.”
Historians are a conservative group of people, Duberman said. “They devote their lives to preserving — underline it — the past,” he said, “They’re not likely to be interested in any combined format that merges the past with the present.”
Duberman doesn’t have a clue as to what got him hooked on history. “It was inescapably an unconscious decision,” he said. “I was torn between literature and wanting to be a writer. To find out more about the past and how come we’re at the point of time that we are.”
When Duberman was a freshman at Yale University, the man who taught his history class was only five years older than he. “At his very first class we took to each other,” Duberman said, “and became friendly. He became a role model for me.”
“He just died at 99,” Duberman added, “we never talked openly about homosexuality. But I got the strong impression that he, too, was gay.”
Duberman, who was born in New York, wasn’t out in college or graduate school. Though, he checked out the two gay bars in Boston when he was at Harvard.
Coming out wasn’t an option for people in Duberman’s generation who came of age in the 1940s and 1950s. You could be arrested, expelled from school, kicked out of your apartment or fired from your job if you were open about who you were. People warned him “against coming out to any degree,” Duberman said.
Duberman and his older sister were raised in a secular Jewish household. His father, as a young man, escaped from working in a beet plantation in Russia to Germany and then to New York. His mother went to high school at night while working as a secretary.
From childhood on, Duberman was bitten by a love of theater. He went to theater camp and performed in high school plays.
As a student at the (then) boys prep school Horace Mann, he played female as well as male roles. One night, his friend Bob’s girlfriend noticed that Duberman was the “actress” who portrayed a “stewardess” in a play that evening, Duberman recalls in “Reaching Ninety.” “‘But you can’t be,’ she gasped, ‘you have such beautiful legs!’” Duberman remembers her telling him.
Duberman, a polymath, would grow up to become a privileged insider while remaining an observant, critical outsider.
His many honors include: the Vernon Rice/Drama Desk Award, three Lambda Literary Awards, a special award from the National Academy of Arts and Letters for his contributions to literature and the 2007 lifetime achievement award from the American Historical Association. He’s been a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist.
He and his life-partner, Eli, a psychoanalyst, have just celebrated their 35th anniversary. He’s revered for his pioneering work in queer history.
Yet, even though he’s white, cisgender, and privileged, Duberman hasn’t ever been complacent or content. He still remembers how horrified he was back in the 1960s when he taught at Princeton. “I taught about slavery,” Duberman said, “I was thunderstruck! The white, privileged undergrads were on the verge of defending slavery.”
“It shocked me,” he said, “I shouldn’t have been surprised. But I was.”
The more he taught, the more discontented Duberman got with, what he saw, as the authoritarian system of education at universities. “I didn’t see the teacher as an authority figure,” he said, “but as a fellow learner.”
Though he had tenure, Duberman resigned from Princeton because of this. Also, he dared to move from Princeton to New York. “Then, people at Princeton thought: How could you leave the loveliest town in the world,” Duberman said.
Duberman deplores Trump and anti-queer right-wingers. But he also has been a long-term critic of the LGBTQ rights movement. Queers should be less concerned about marriage equality and more concerned about issues of race, class, and economic justice, he believes.
“There’s resistance to Trump’s lies,” Duberman said, “and it’s appearing in the mainstream – in The New Yorker – even The New York Times.”
The electorate is the greatest roadblock to social change, Duberman said. “The LGBTQ community, like a lot of the country, is conservative,” he added.
Duberman isn’t feeling terribly optimistic at this moment. But, “I keep hoping that one of the upcoming generations will turn out to be different,” he said.
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Margaret Cho returns to music with ‘Lucky Gift’
Collection of pop tunes includes tribute to non-binary people
LOS ANGELES — It has been eight years since Margaret Cho released her Grammy-nominated “American Myth” album. She’s back to the music scene with her new album, “Lucky Gift,” an 11-track collection of anthems and pop tunes, a tribute to Robin Williams, and a shout-out to non-binary and gender non-conforming people.
The album captures the whirlwind that is Margaret and all of the different facets of her talents that have made her a powerhouse in entertainment and a leader in activism. In “Lucky Gift,” she’s getting her point across while having fun and getting glam.
We caught up with the activist and artist to chat about her music, our political climate, and the power of pop divas.
Known for her comedy, acting, and activism, she felt it was long overdue to get her music back out there too.
“I make music often. It’s a part of my daily life, it’s a big part of my social life, and it’s just something that I just love to do for my own relaxation and fun. I had enough for an album and I wanted to finally put them out. I was just really proud of how it all sounded together,” shares Cho.
“It’s a power pop record. For me, the songs are really meaningful. They’re all in their own way love songs. I’m a big fan of my own music (laughs), I really like the way that I sound and it’s really special to do. People know me as a comedian, and I have also made music for a long time, but it’s sort of a side project, and so it was time to put more out again.”
Her album also includes a touching tribute to Robin Williams. The entertainment community is finally more comfortable talking about mental health more openly. When relating mental health to her own life, Margaret, in true Margaret form, quickly turned the conversation to reflect today’s political climate.
“I have to maintain a level of peace and quiet and sometimes maybe get away from the news, although that’s tough because I am obsessed. I want to know what is happening. I’m really worried for our community, especially the trans community. I’m worried that this administration is trying to separate T and the Q from the LGBTQIA, and it’s really frightening.”
As an elder, Cho says she has to also remember that we’ve been through this before and it’s actually been much worse. As a community, we’ve been through a similar situation, and we were facing down a pandemic, which was killing us by the millions. So at least now we don’t have to fight AIDS as well as this onslaught of homophobia.
“We have fought for our rights, and we still have them, but we may not have them for long. So our mental health is very important to preserve now because we have to fight. The one thing to remember is they can’t do everything at once. They can’t take away trans rights, queer rights, gay rights, gay marriage, anti-depressants —ha — at the same time. So what we can do is just try to remain as calm as possible and fight as strongly as we can. But yeah, mental health is really vitally important right now.”
Margaret’s long history of queer activism stands for itself. She does not shy away from current issues, she uses her platforms to incite, educate, and question. For Margaret, there is no time off from being an activist. She was born into it, so to speak, being raised in San Francisco in the 1970s, her parents — the owners of a gay bookstore — and their employees followers of Harvey Milk.
“My activism is that I don’t have a choice. I’m going to be an activist no matter what. We’re doing this together, we’re going through this together. I will always be political. It’s just disheartening to see the ignorance of people and the lies that are being told that are believed.”
Margaret’s “Lucky Gift” comes at a perfect time when the queer community can come together over music. Cho looks at her album as a tool to empower an underdog community through the power of music.
“It’s the triumph of pop above all. We need to look to our pop divas above all. So now I’m more than ever, leaning on Madonna. [Thank God for Lady Gaga’s] “Abracadabra” because I think that things like that boost our community so much. When you can just get together and have a “brat summer,” that boosts our community so much in this togetherness, this explosion of excitement. I think Chappell Roan really ignited the pop capacity for healing. I love ‘Lucky Gift’ because it is my stepping into a pop diva moment. Pop divas should not be discounted for how important they are to our society and how much they lift us up.”
In addition to releasing her new album, Cho will continue to hit the road this year with her “Live and LIVID! Tour,” celebrating more than four decades of live stand-up shows. On this tour, she promises to rage about homophobia, sexism, racism, and the fight to stay alive. The five-time Grammy and Emmy-nominated performer is not holding back. According to her, the nation is not divided, just a little lost.
“We’re not divided. Everybody hates this. We all hate this. The fact is, the majority of the country does not want this. Unfortunately, a lot of people just didn’t vote because they just didn’t want to participate. That’s why we’re in the situation that we’re in. So to be on the road is a pleasure. And I rarely come against opposition. Every once in a while there’s something, but it’s something that we all handle. I think we all need a voice, a strong voice of reason to combat all of the hysteria.”
And her message to her fans?
“We’ll get through this. We’ll get through this with pop divas. ‘Abracadabra,’ learn the choreography, you do it sitting down. At least we have pop music, I have my hat in the ring here. But at least we have each other and we’re going to be OK. It’s going to be a ride, it’s going to be intense, but we can do this. We’ve been through this before and we are going to be fine.”
“Lucky Gift”is now available on all major streaming platforms.
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Meet the people giving a voice to LGBTQ truck drivers
‘Like therapy,’ finding solace in each other and the road
Before embarking on his weekly 2,000-mile trip as a truck driver, Derric Schmid sets up his smart TV and preps meals in bulk like ham and potatoes.
To some, long hours on the road away from family and friends sounds grueling. But for Schmid, it’s his way of life.
“I love the freedom,” Schmid said. “I get paid to go see the country. I’ve spent New Year’s Eve in New Orleans, I’ve spent it in St. Louis and this year I spent Christmas out in California exploring.”
Schmid is the vice president and senior diversity officer of LGBTQ+ Truck Driver Network (TDN), a nonprofit he runs with founder Bobby Coffey-Loy. TDN aims to foster inclusivity and safety in the truck driving industry by building a supportive network of allies and queer truckers.
The organization vets companies (Schmid says he calls 50-100 per week) to understand which are committed to creating safe spaces for drivers of all backgrounds. Schmid and Coffey-Loy also host the Big Gay Trucker Podcast, where they interview people who need advice or want to discuss taboo topics.
Coffey-Loy said meeting people from different walks of life, including trans people recovering from surgeries while on the road, inspired him to create TDN.
“It just opened me up to a whole group of people that just needed representation,” Coffey-Loy said. “There are groups out there on [social media] pages, but nobody actually took it as far as a nonprofit organization.”
Coffey-Loy drives with his partner of 17 years, Ricky, for a company called Luna Lines. Together they drive about 6,000 miles a week, taking turns sleeping or keeping one another company. On Monday, they typically start a load in Jacksonville and then drive to New Mexico, Chicago, Baltimore, Tennessee and end up back home in Palm Coast, Fla., by Friday. They even pay for all their gas and food while on the road.
Doing a weekly cross-country road trip in tight quarters with your partner can be trying, and Coffey-Loy will be the first to admit that: “Your partner is someone that knows how to push your buttons faster than anybody else,” he laughed.
But he also said starting truck driving together eight years ago is what made him and his husband closer. Before driving, he said it felt like life and jobs sometimes got in the way of their relationship. Going to trucking school together and being able to support each other on the road over the years has sparked a different kind of connection in their lives.
“We didn’t want to be apart from each other, so that’s what made trucking work for us,” he said.
For both Schmid and Coffey-Loy, truck driving runs in the family. Schmid, who’s been driving trucks for almost 24 years and with TDN for more than two, calls Jonestown, Pa., home –– a borough with a 2023 population of 1,645. He had three uncles and a grandfather who were truck drivers.
Coffey-Loy, born and raised in West Virginia, said his father and grandfather were truck drivers.
Continuing family tradition is respectable enough, but Coffey-Loy’s mission of creating a safe and supportive space for those in the industry was unique; it was difficult for his parents to accept his identity when he first came out.
Coffey-Loy’s parents passed away 11 months apart last year. He said they learned to grow to love him for who he was. When TDN started up, they became “mom and dad to everyone,” and even invited people with no familial structure to move in with them.
At get-togethers, his dad called everyone “sweetie” or “honey” to be respectful since he didn’t know how everyone identified.
“What they’ve taught me is, if they can change their mind and they can accept everybody, anybody can,” Coffey-Loy said. “I will cherish it forever. I miss them every day.”
And the impact of this lesson has been tried and true. TDN attended the Mid-America Trucking Show despite receiving death threats and facing extra security measures –– yet they ran through dozens of handouts before their station even opened. Another year, they handed out condoms to promote safe sex on the road and were met with backlash –– yet they went through a whole box on the first day.
The team behind TDN may be small –– about eight people –– but Schmid said their reach is wide. Thousands of people visit their social media pages from around the world and connect with each other, including a vocal German bus driver and a man from Africa trying to create more queer visibility in his area.
Coffey-Loy said many people contact him directly for support. There was a straight man who called who had trouble balancing his home life and truck driving hours and expressed suicidal thoughts. The man said he saw Coffey-Loy’s number and needed someone to talk to.
Moments like those are why Coffey-Loy emphasizes that the organization is there to support everyone, not solely the LGBTQ community. He recalled a bonfire gathering where people of different backgrounds and identities laughed and talked as friends.
“It’s why you do what you do,” Coffey-Loy said.
Although TDN has given many people a family away from home, it doesn’t make losing time with family and friends any easier. Coffey-Loy missed a family member’s funeral in West Virginia because he was in New Mexico and couldn’t abandon his load.
“He had already been buried before I could get back,” he said.
It’s a different way of life, but it’s not an impossible one. Schmid calls his mom and stepfather every morning and his mom again in the evenings. He gets on group calls with friends and TDN members. On weekends, Schmid sees some friends in person for dinners, and is able to visit with his family.
Truck driving may mean frequently saying goodbye to close people in his life, but it also opens the door to new connections around the country: “I got friends in every state,” Schmid said.
Although he’s constantly traveling, Coffey-Loy always feels at home. It’s those nights driving, with nothing but the roaring hum of the road filling the silence while his husband sleeps behind him, that fulfill him.
“Even though you miss so much of your everyday life, there’s something about trucking that is so freeing,” Coffey-Loy said. “The road can be so loud in your life, and it has a way to really sort out things. It’s like therapy for me.”
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Saldaña triumphs amid ‘Emilia Pérez’ collapse at Oscars
Karla Sofía Gascón loses top award to Mikey Madison after scandal
It’s no wonder the camera caught actress Michele Yeoh crying after watching queer singer Cynthia Erivo (nominated for best actress) and Ariana Grande (nominated for best supporting actress) perform one of the much-loved songs from “Wicked,” as they were simply magnificent.
Grande opened with Judy Garland’s “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” and Erivo sang “Home” from “The Wiz.” That was one of the many bright spots in the 97th annual Academy Awards, which took place Sunday night at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.
While the duo sadly didn’t take away any awards, the magical film did — gay costume designer Paul Tazewell won the Oscar for Best Costume Design.
“This is absolutely astounding,” Tazewell enthused onstage, in his acceptance speech. “Thank you Academy for this very significant honor. I’m the first Black man to receive a costume design award for my work on ‘Wicked.’ I’m so proud of this.”
In the pressroom, Tazewell elaborated on his well deserved win.
“This is the pinnacle of my career. I’ve been designing costumes for over 35 years,” he said. “Much has been on Broadway and now into film, and the whole way through there was never a Black male designer that I saw that I could follow, that I could see as inspiration. And to realize that that’s actually me, it becomes a ‘Wizard of Oz’ moment, you know, it’s like no place like home. So to come back to the inspiration being inside of me was — is really remarkable.”
Tazewell said he achieved the award with the help of a lot of really amazing and talented costume artisans of all types and an amazing staff and assistants and crew.
“Because, you know, there’s no way for me to do it alone! And that also is my greatest joy — to be collaborating with other very talented artists, so I respect what that artistry is, and I share this with them because I value what their input is.”
The veteran costume designer knew the movie was going to be pretty spectacular, but he was “absolutely blown away,” because of their approach.
“We were working on two films at the same time. It wasn’t until I actually saw a pretty complete cut that I actually experienced the journey that we have created for audiences. And so, to experience that –I was beside myself. And it defined why I do costume design, why I am a costume designer.”
“Wicked” also won the Oscar for Best Production Design.
“Emilia Pérez,” Netflix’s mesmerizing Spanish language, trans crime musical, had a whopping 13 nominations, with first-time nominee Karla Sofia Gascón making history as the first trans woman to be nominated for best actress. This would have been the most nominated foreign film in the history of the Academy Awards.
Unfortunately, after the controversy surrounding her past tweets, the film only won two awards: for best supporting actress (Zoe Saldana) and best original song (“El Mal”).
While the U.S. is in an era of anti-trans political maneuvering, Sunday night’s broadcast included no mention of trans people.
In the pressroom, during an interview with “Emilia” composers Clément Ducol, Camille, and director Jacques Audiard, a journalist asked if anyone wanted to address what was happening.
Speaking in French via a translator, Audiard said, “Since I didn’t win Best Film or Best Director, I didn’t have the opportunity to speak, but had I had that opportunity, I would have spoken up.”
Saldaña, who starred as Rita, a lawyer who gets enmeshed with the trans cartel leader’s transition, was thrilled to win.
“I am floored by this honor. Thank you to the Academy for recognizing the quiet heroism and the power in a woman like Rita. And talking about powerful women, my fellow nominees, the love and community that you have offered me is a true gift, and I will pay it forward. Thank you so much Jacques Audiard, you are forever a beloved character in my life. Thank you for taking the interest, thank you for being so curious about these women to tell this story to my cast and my crew of ‘Emilia Pérez.’”
Saldaña’s nephew is trans; a few weeks ago, while winning the best supporting actress at the BAFTAs, she told journalists that she was dedicating the award to him.
“I’m dedicating all of these awards and the film ‘Emilia Pérez’ to my nephew, Eli. He is the reason — they are the reason — I signed up to do this film in the first place,” she said. “So as the proud aunt of a trans life, I will always stand with my community of trans people.”
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