#49 | Why Understanding LGBTQ History Is Essential for Parents & Allies (Mental Health & Resilience Edition)

Welcome to Just Breathe: Parenting Your LGBTQ Teen, the podcast transforming the conversation around loving and raising an LGBTQ child. Filled with awesome guests, practical strategies, and moving stories, host Heather Hester always makes you feel like you're having a cozy chat. Wherever you are on this journey right now, in this moment in time, you are not alone. And here is Heather for this week's amazing episode.

Welcome to Just Breathe. I am so happy you are here today. Before I get started, I just want to apologize for the sound quality. We were having some technical difficulties, and so the sound is not quite what it usually is, but I'm really, really excited for you to hear today's guest. Robert Steele is an author, a broadcaster, and a gay rights activist, and he has written a book called Banned from California: Jim Faucher—Persecution, Redemption, Liberation, and the Gay Civil Rights Movement. Robert served as a reporter and producer at various radio and television stations in Colorado and Arizona in his career. He was also a broadcaster at the Italian National Broadcasting company in Naples, Italy, was a reporter for Armed Forces Radio and Television along the coast of Vietnam and the Asian-Western Pacific, and he was a volunteer activist in the early gay liberation movement with the Gay Coalition of Denver with two weekly gay radio shows. Later, as a federal government public affairs officer, he served as a government spokesperson and managed media relations with reporters who worked for media outlets from across the USA and around the world. I just think that you are going to learn so much from today's interview. It's something I had never heard before, did not know about, and was just fascinated by the history. I recommend that you pick up this book if you are interested in the history of the gay liberation movement and gay civil rights. This is just an extraordinary story. So without further ado, here is Robert.

Robert, I am really, really thrilled to have you with me here on the show today and to have you share your, your story and the story of Jim Faucher with us and to talk about about the book that you have just written called Banned from California: Jim Faucher, Persecution, Redemption, Liberation, and the Gay Civil Rights Movement, which, oh my goodness, is just quite extraordinary. It's a mouthful. So I am just curious, I'd like to start kind of right at the beginning, and then we can we can backtrack because I do want to know about your background that got you into this. But what is it about Jim's life that made him so compelling and made you really want to write about him and his life?

Well, Jim and I met as activists in the early 1970s gay liberation movement.. And at that time, all of us felt like we were really on the threshold of some very positive expectations and that we were making big strides in this new gay liberation movement. It was a time then of— it was a new time. It was a new time then of gay militancy and homosexuality for the first time was being discussed more openly.. And in those radical times, mainstream Americans were dazed by endless riots and protests against racial discrimination, the Vietnam War, protests for free speech, women's rights, the environment, publicity about hippies and meditation, expanded consciousness, psychedelics, LSD. Free love, men with long hair, and on and on and on. And activists— we activists often worked in more than one movement. We were constantly transferring our experiences and knowledge back and forth from one movement to another, including the gay civil rights movement. And it was against this background that Jim and I met. But a couple of decades later, in the 1990s, I did a series of interviews with Jim Faucher for Band from California. But at that time, I was working full-time and simply did not want to work on the book in my evenings and on my weekends. So then, 20 years later, after I retired, I finally, in earnest, began writing the book. About, oh, 6 or 7 years ago, I realized that I had to start getting Banned from California written and published. I absolutely could not let this story, uh, be lost to history because I thought it was an important story that absolutely had to be told and offered to people. Yeah, even though Banned from California is a biography about Jim's life, It's really much more than that. It's a history about a certain time in LGBT history. And the culture and history of the LGBTQ civil rights movement in the USA pretty much serves as a backdrop for Jim's life and all of his travels. And we actually see 70 years of American culture through the eyes of this gay American. Most LGBT history books or gay history books are kind of written in a more academic style, and a lot of readers find that that style is somewhat dry and harder to plod through. So instead, I wrote Ben from California pretty much in a first-person, you are there style. And a lot of readers have told me that It makes it really easy to read and a lot more captivating.

Absolutely. I can totally see that. I think— and you are absolutely right about just the way that a lot of LGBTQ history is written. And I also find that a lot of the history doesn't go you know, much before Stonewall. So the fact that you have, you know, gone back 20 years before Stonewall with the story, right, I think just gives it— there's so much more depth. There's just— and I don't know, I just find that I'm fascinated by, um, you know, by his story and by what we can learn Seeing, it's one of those things that shows how far we've come, right, in this struggle for gay civil rights, but how far we still have to go.

Yeah, life was tough for homosexuals in the early 1950s. You had the McCarthy era, and U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy was embarking on that highly publicized quest to rid the government of communists and homosexuals. And then you had the U.S. House of Representatives with their House Un-American Activities Committee, and they also investigated communists and homosexuals. And even President Dwight Eisenhower issued an executive order, and in that he declared that, uh, sexual perversion was a ground for homosexuals to be fired from their jobs.

So, you know, these are things that I think are so important and reasons why it is, it is so important that you have written this book, because we can't forget this.

Oh, and in that time, uh, of all things, Jim lived an openly gay life in the 1950s, and he was only a teenager then., and doing that was seen at the time as criminal behavior. Uh, so Banned from California really does place Jim's story, you could say, within a context of the gay civil rights movement during the Cold War and McCarthyism, because back then gay America was in the shadows. It was a secret subculture with its own clubs and its own customs and even its own code words. In fact, Jim dated older men, and he said that he thought the word gay was cool to use back then, but that put off some of the older guys he dated because they thought that Jim and the other younger guys were ruining a good, a good, uh, code word by popularly using gay. And that before long guys would be afraid to ask anybody if they were gay because everybody else would have learned what gay meant.

Oh, interesting.

In fact, whenever he left a bar with a guy— and they were always older guys, Jim was into older guys— they'd end up walking 2 or 3 blocks to the older guy's car because they never parked next to a gay bar. These men usually had good jobs and they didn't want their, uh, livelihoods threatened by an arrest. Sure. And the true turning point in these times was actually the rise of the gay press. It was pretty much a radical new type of publication and it permeated, and it permeated the fledgling gay civil rights movement. You've probably never heard about it. In fact, most of your listeners have probably never heard about it, but the first enduring gay publication in the U.S. was a magazine called One, and it first began publishing in 1953. It was about the size of Reader's Digest. It had fewer pages, only about 2 or 3 dozen pages per issue. And by 1957, about 3,000 monthly copies were printed, and they were sold through subscriptions and also sold at newsstands. So it essentially marked the true beginning of the gay press because ONE positioned itself into the forefront of the emerging queer movement, and it pretty much awakened homosexuals nationwide. Most straight people were unaware of One magazine. So I have a, I have a story about it. Would you like to hear?

I would, yes.

Well, a couple of years after One started publishing, the U.S. Post Office impounded the magazine. It's October 1954 edition, and the Post Office called the magazine obscene and filthy, and the Post Office refused to deliver One through the mail. So ONE took the post office to court in Los Angeles, and they lost. The judge then, in 19— in the 1950s, ruled that the magazine was obviously calculated to stimulate the lust of homosexual readers. So ONE appealed the judge's ruling to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and they lost again. The appeals court ruled that, uh, articles in the magazine were nothing more than cheap pornography, that it was morally depraved and debased. So after these two legal setbacks, one staff members obviously were dejected and dispirited, but one's attorney wanted to take the course all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, of all things. One staff members were pessimistic about that, but they went ahead and okayed their attorney's plan of action. And the Supreme Court ruled and handed down its ruling. It did not even hear oral arguments. The U.S. Supreme Court back then ruled unanimously in One's favor. The High Court reversed the two lower courts' opinions and essentially ruled that One magazine's discussion of homosexual was not obscene, that, uh, it was an exercise of free speech, right? And that homosexuals had the same right of freedom of the press as anybody else in the USA. And this was the first legal victory for homosexuals in the U.S. Supreme Court. And that important landmark decision made it possible for homosexual publications to exist, which allowed essentially allowed the Equal Rights for Homosexuals movement to develop and advance. So one magazine fought and won that critical, crucial initial battle.

Amazing. Wow. And that is something that I've never heard of. I'm sure many people haven't heard of.

It's in the book and it's a wonderful story.

Giving a history from an "I've been there" perspective instead of a drier perspective, right? Just brings it alive. And I, you know, you touched a little bit on the very early part of Jim's life where he has the title of the book. He is from California, and he was out from a very, very young age, but I know that he was put into an orphanage as a very young child, and as well as put into a mental hospital for homosexual behavior. And I'm wondering if you could talk about that, because that is something that, you know, it's kind of urban legend almost at this point. And I feel like it is, you know, something that is so important for people to understand.

Uh, certainly, uh, "Ban from California" details Jim's young life, uh, mostly being institutionalized. Uh, he was first institutionalized when his mother placed him and his older sister in an orphanage, uh, when he was 3 years old. Uh, Jim's older sister Ruthie was 8 years old at that time. She'd already experienced the loss of her daddy, who had died the year before, and then in the orphanage she had to deal with the emotional trauma of being alone in a strange place, uh, essentially with neither parent. Uh, now Jim was so young, he told me that he didn't really remember anything about entering the orphanage, nor how he initially dealt with it. But anyway, after 3 years that the kids spent in the orphanage, Jim's mother brought the kids back home to live with her and they settled in together. But by that time, uh, Jim could not remember anything about his mother before he lived in the orphanage. He said that she seemed like a nice lady, but he couldn't remember much about her. He said he didn't think he really was capable of bonding with her because he'd already lived half of his life in a young orphanage. So then at age 13, Jim was placed in a reform school to correct his runaway tendencies and other incorrigible behavior. So the training school's medical staff determined that Jim was mentally ill with severe social maladjustment problems, and they transferred the 14-year-old out of reform school and into Idaho State Mental Hospital. And from then through the rest of his teenage years, he lived mainly at that mental institution. Uh, that Idaho Mental Hospital was a fairly progressive mental institution during the 1960s. They really didn't think Jim was mentally ill. Their main concern about Jim was that they were afraid he was becoming institutionalized through his young life. Becoming institutionalized at the mental hospital. So they tried various techniques to integrate him back into society. However, Jim was a lot more comfortable away from home and away from society, and he couldn't wait to get back to the hospital where he said his real friends lived. He, he couldn't be truthful and tell people outside the hospital who he really was. Because after all, not only was he gay and running off to California, but he was living most of his teenage life in a mental hospital. Wow.

So then how did he get from the Idaho mental hospital to— was his next stop Texas, or what finally encouraged him to leave and and start moving forward with his life.

Well, in Band from California, Texas, and specifically Dallas, come into direct focus because in 1962— well, let me start first, let me back up. I, I just want to say that, um, that Jim escaped my home by hitchhiking all the time. In 1954, when he was 15, he hitchhiked 800 miles from his abusive family life in Idaho to the land that his mother's associates and church members called a place populated by queers and fruits. So he sets out on this adventure that pretty much redefines his life. And puts him in the midst of the civil rights struggle of gay people across the USA spanning a half century. Uh, Ben from California includes a lot of anecdotes of people Jim met and places his travel. He met drag queens and hustlers, good cops and bad cops, as well as brushes with the hippies. The Beats and the early 1970s gay liberation movement. Wow. He was born in 1939, and we see years of American culture.

Absolutely. And, you know, this is a story that you don't typically hear, right? Which is why I'm sure you felt so compelled to write it. Put him at a very interesting, you know, time in history. And then, and specifically time in gay history?

Yes, um, a few chapters of Band from California cover the time that Jim spent in prison. In the book, we learn a lot about Jim's upbringing as a chronic runaway from his dysfunctional family, and my reporting in the book details his repeated placement in institutions. So it really was almost a foregone conclusion that he'd eventually end up in prison. Um, both Texas and specifically Dallas come into direct focus because in 1962 Jim Faucher visited Dallas, and because he stayed away from his dysfunctional family, far away from his abusive home, money always was a problem. So in Dallas, he, he was registered at the YMCA for about a week or 10 days and he'd spent all of his money and owed one more day's rent, and he didn't know how he was going to pay. So he ended up stealing a billfold with $100 in it, and he, he paid, uh, the YMCA, and then he hightailed it and took a taxi cab to a nearby hotel. But the police were able to track down the taxi cab's route and they busted Jim in his hotel room, and they recovered the stolen billfold and the money in his suitcase. So obviously Jim's life as a 23-year-old guy had degenerated into stealing money to get by, and, uh, it was probably the biggest mistake of his life. Anyway, in the Dallas County Criminal District Court, Jim pleaded guilty and the judge handed him a 5-year prison sentence in the Texas Penitentiary System, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

That's pretty harsh for stealing a wallet.

Back then you had to pay quite a lot for any crimes with time served in jail and prison. It wasn't, uh It was a lot more harsh back then than nowadays.

I would say so.

So anyway, he, he went to prison, and, uh, a few chapters in Banned from California cover that time that Jim spent in prison. And, uh, there were a lot of hardened prisoners there and a lot of dangers. Uh, I am sure He served on a prison farm where he toiled on a chain gang. He said that in the summertime life was absolutely miserable and Jim and other chain gang prisoners were forced to endure backbreaking work and the prisoners sweated under a hot blazing sun working to dig trenches and build irrigation structures and harvest crops. So work itself was pretty much physical abuse. They constantly worked and could not stop. But, uh, Jim was the closest thing to a lady out there on the chain gang than the, uh, uniformed field bosses and guards. Never seen somebody like him before. So for Boss and Jim, it pretty much became a regular routine. Boss would sit on his horse, bored out of his mind, and he'd call Jim forward and gripe about Jim's work methods. Keep his hoe near the ground when he hoed, don't bend his legs when he scraped the irrigation ditch, keep his feet apart when he shoveled, and on and on. Uh, so Boss concluded pretty quickly that he wasn't going to be successful in making Jim into a masculine laborer. So anyway, Jim was forced to endure the chain gang and the prison farm.

Wow. And I just am wondering How is he able to— and this is, so he's 20, what, 23 you said when he went there? So, so he was there for 5 years, so 28. So essentially the first 20 years, 25 years of his life were really wrought with trauma, and, um, you know, there was nothing stable about it. And I'm just wondering how he was able to survive that, how he was able to rise above that and become an activist and to find this place of stability and a place where he felt like, "Yeah, this is where I belong." Well, uh, Ben from California, uh, pretty much covers Jim's life up until the time he died.

And about 4 years after he was released from, from prison, he lived in Colorado for many years. And in Colorado, at the age of, uh, let's see, 29 He finally found love and happiness. He met his partner and they moved in together. Nowadays they, they would have been married. And, uh, so, uh, Jim was comfortable for the first time and he decided, uh, that he would get involved in the gay rights movement. Instead of being at the mercy of, uh, the persecution around him, he put his destiny in his own hands, and, uh, he joined the, uh, a couple of the, uh, gay liberation organizations in Colorado, and, uh, he even did a radio show Back then.

I'm actually happy to hear that because I, you know, in a lot of ways his story, you know, really could have gone quite the other direction, right? And certainly being out at that time, and I think that, you know, it is very difficult for anyone, you know, younger now to understand the level of bigotry and homophobia gay Americans faced in the '50s, '60s, '70s, and the consequences, right? That— It was very positive.

Yes, it was very positive that Jim became a gay rights activist for himself because Uh, Jim said that his high— that his childhood and teen years clearly qualified him as an abused child. Oh, and his move to Denver coincided with a new robust national discourse about homosexuality, and the Stonewall Uprising occurred right after, uh, in fact a month after Jim arrived in Denver. And the counterculture movement was growing and gay rights groups were organizing across the country, so Jim got involved and it was a cause worth living for. As I said, he was no longer at the mercy of the persecution around him, and so he effectively took control of his own life and put his destiny in his own hands.

Wow. It's just really, really moving, and there's so many layers to what we can learn from his story and what is important for us to learn and to remember. I always think, you know, I've always loved history, and I think You know, there's, I think, a saying that if we, you know, if we don't remember history, if we do not honor history, it just continues to repeat itself, right?

Oh, that's right. We've come a long way, right? And, you know, to keep from losing our equal rights, we're gonna all have to be vigilant and constantly stand up for our rights, or they will be taken away. Right now, legal briefs are being written by conservative lawyers, and while they're encouraging the overturn of Roe v. Wade, they also are looking at overturning Lawrence v. Texas, that ruled that state laws banning homosexual sodomy are unconstitutional. They're looking to overturn Obergefell and Hodges that granted LGBT people the right to same-sex marriage. So people don't realize that those two current rights easily can be overturned by this new Supreme Court, and gay people feel that, uh, we must stand vigilant. Agreed.

Agreed. And I think that it's, you know, for the younger generation, but, you know, all of the allies around them as well, that this is such an important thing to remember. This is not the first time that we are, you know, that rights are being fought for. And I love that you made that so clear at the very beginning of our interview that, you know, there were all of the protests going on 60 years ago about a lot of the things that once again are really coming to the forefront, right? You know, human rights, racial equality— sorry, lost my word— all of these things that here we are, It's just a different generation, and, and I think this is just so powerful to remember that you can't get lazy. That's right. And that it is important— these are things are important to continue fighting for and continue spreading positive and accurate information.

And, uh, you know, I've listened to some of your podcasts and I think you're doing fantastic work out there in the podcast sphere. Thank you. I just wanted to praise you for your work. I've listened to some of your shows and they're extremely Interesting. I heard a couple of the ones where you interviewed your son and a couple of other ones, so you should keep up the good work too.

Well, thank you. I plan on it. This is, you know, for me, this is the— it's been an interesting path to finding my life's passion, you know, aside from my kids, my husband, and my family. Doing this work is so very important to me. And so, you know, that's— and talking to you and people like you just give me such inspiration to continue doing this work because it is so important. And really, I think a lot of dispelling myths, right, and false information that is out there that That's half the battle, don't you think?

Uh, yes, we have to definitely fight, uh, and stand up and actually do some things rather than sitting back and watching TV.

Well, and I think too, the one thing that I, I realized, and I want everybody out there who is listening to really take this to heart. A lot of people feel like, well, what good can I do? I'm just one person. I can't make a difference. And that is— could not be further from the truth. Well, and you're an example of that. Thank you. Thank you. I just— I think— Everyone, the more voices that we have, the more, you know, just one little thing in your community that makes a difference. You have no idea the impact that that makes. I actually saw the other day this really cool video, and it's nothing new, but I love the visual of it, which is, you know, the whole idea of the ripple effect. It was a dad teaching his little son about it, and, you know, when you do something good for someone or for a movement or for, you know, whatever it is, it's like throwing a rock into the water. You know, he tosses the water— you know, the rock out there, and the whole ripple. You see what that does? You see how it affects? You have no idea the effect.

And you feel better about yourself because, as Jim did, you put your destiny in your own hands and you affect your life that way. That's right.

That's right. And I think there's a lot of power to that too, especially for, you know, people in the LGBTQ community and, you know, any racial minorities where people feel so at the mercy of others. Right? And the moment that you realize, wait, I can positively affect my life, I can take control, that's a game changer. Most definitely. I am wondering if you— if there's anything else that you would like to share about your book, about your, your inspiration to write. About this book, what you'd like for my listeners to know or, you know, take away from this. The floor is yours.

Well, I would say that the book is definitely a good read, and you'll learn a lot about the early gay liberation movement and a lot of things that You may not have known, and it's available, uh, in bookstores and especially online like amazon.com. And, uh, it's spelled B-A-N-N-E-D. Uh, it's been in the past where a couple people thought it was a band from Colorado.

Yes, from California. Oh my goodness, that's funny. I can see that. Well, I will, um, like I said about the, you know, when we were talking earlier a little bit about the wonderful article that was written about this, I will also put in my show notes, um, the correct spelling and title as well as links so people can just click right on it and get to Amazon and— you know, other places where they can get this right away. Good.

It's really been an honor to be with you today.

Well, it has been an honor for me as well, and really, really lovely talking to you and learning from you. And thank you for everything that you have done over the course of your very extraordinary life. I just— I feel very humbled to get to talk to you, so I am delighted to put this out there for all of my listeners and anyone who happens to click through. Thank you. You are welcome.

Thanks so much for joining Heather Hester today. Remember to just breathe. Take a few minutes every day to calm and center yourself. Reach out anytime anytime with ideas, questions, or feedback. Please rate and review Just Breathe on your favorite platform. Subscribe to Heather's website, www.chrysalismama.com, to receive her monthly newsletter and stay informed. Join the private Just Breathe Facebook community to chat with other parents and allies, and share with anyone who needs to know that they are not alone.