22 Sides
22 Sides is a podcast that will let you get to know some fascinating people and keep up with many things that are happening in and around the Houston area.
22 Sides
The Fight for Acceptance: LGBTQ+ History Through Personal Stories
Step into a living time capsule as we sit down with elders of Houston's LGBTQ+ community who share raw, firsthand accounts of the city's queer history spanning five decades. These aren't stories you'll find in textbooks—they're personal testimonies of survival, resistance, and community-building during times when simply existing as yourself could be dangerous.
Our guests take us back to the tense atmosphere of Houston's first Pride parade, where participants wore black armbands after police killed a gay man the night before. You'll hear about the elaborate warning systems gay bars created during police raids, with owners calling each other down Westheimer Road to protect their patrons. They reveal the origins of the Royal Court system, which became crucial when the AIDS crisis struck and the government turned its back on the community.
The conversation doesn't shy away from difficult truths. From being thrown out of bathrooms to losing housing after the failure of Houston's Equal Rights Ordinance, these stories provide crucial context for today's battles over transgender rights. Our guests candidly discuss the divisions within the LGBTQ+ community itself—how trans people were sometimes left behind in political compromises, and how lesbians stepped up to care for gay men during the AIDS crisis when their families abandoned them.
What makes this episode especially powerful is the intergenerational wisdom exchanged. Older activists offer perspective on navigating pronouns and gender identity with patience, while emphasizing that today's youth deserve better than what they endured. They share practical strategies for political effectiveness beyond protest, drawn from decades of experience.
Whether you're a longtime community member or an ally seeking deeper understanding, these stories will transform how you view LGBTQ+ history and the ongoing struggle for equality.
We invite you to connect with us, share your stories, and support the podcast through our website. Your experiences matter, and together we can ensure this important history is preserved for future generations.
We hope you will listen often.
For more information, visit our website 22sides.com
Wherever we want to go. I mean, I've been in the community a couple of years, yeah.
Alexis:Okay, we're good, I'm going back to recording. It doesn't take very long. You have a lot of sound pressure when you talk.
Chris Sushi :Is that good or bad? No, it just is.
Alexis:I mean, there's some people who you think would be really loud and they're like this because they have no air movement, air movement.
Robin:You have a lot of air movement, chris well, and I was saying I who knows what the difference would be between a show voice or a talking voice like here?
Falcon Fuhr:so I don't know. I think that's what I'm trying to do is keep my talking voice and not my show voice, because I don't need a microphone right and we can uh manage all that in editing.
Alexis:So it's okay if it's okay if it spikes and stuff, so that's totally fine you don't have to be, and you'll be amazed when you see the summary of whatever we come up with. Oh my gosh, we use ai to do the summary for us.
Falcon Fuhr:Oh well, I I can do that now. Falcon's an idiot. Don't listen anything he says that that's sweet.
Alexis:No, and it comes up with stuff and we're just amazed. It's actually pretty good.
Robin:It's pretty good. Yeah, you don't want to oversell it. Yes. But it's actually pretty inspiring.
Alexis:That was only mentioned like a little bit in there, but it was a real important thing.
Robin:It just pulls it right out. Yeah, it picks up the highlights that would most likely be listened to or want to be acknowledged.
Alexis:So, other than just chatter along, what are we doing today?
Robin:Well, today we're we have a new pope. Did they already say who? Yeah, it says.
Falcon Fuhr:American. It's actually an American, robert Provost. Really, he was born in Chicago. I think he became a Peruvian citizen. Wow, I think he became a Peruvian citizen. He moved down to Peru and became a citizen down there. I briefly read it before I walked in here.
Robin:Okay, this happens, but he is American born, or I should say US born.
Falcon Fuhr:I don't want to stir anybody by saying oh, it's all America.
Alexis:No go with the American. We want to stir everybody up. That seems pretty quick.
Robin:They estimated I think the average Pope takes like six or seven days to get checked Right.
Falcon Fuhr:It's only been what two.
Robin:Yeah, that's pretty quick.
Falcon Fuhr:They started.
Chris Sushi :Wednesday Pretty quick, yeah, that was a quick choice.
Alexis:So all the Catholics are going to think it's a conspiracy.
Falcon Fuhr:Well, it just totally blows that whole movie conclave off the window.
Robin:Of course.
Falcon Fuhr:I want that whole thing to prepare myself for the conflicts.
Alexis:I'm looking for the bomb.
Falcon Fuhr:you know the fireworks it's like the Pope actually intersexed, because that's exactly what happened in the conclave and I'm like you know, oh sorry, I ruined that for everybody.
Alexis:And we all know about the.
Falcon Fuhr:Illuminati.
Alexis:Right everybody. And we all know about the Illuminati Right.
Chris Sushi :To throw a little, maybe possible, negative into this.
Alexis:I don't see any positives. Just so you know Okay.
Chris Sushi :All the issues that went on in the diocese in Chicago of burying all the sexual assaults and all. Was he part of that? I mean, was he never ordained in Chicago? Was he ordained somewhere else?
Falcon Fuhr:Okay, just so you know. That was Chris saying yeah, hate her. I was born and raised.
Robin:Catholicolic. I was raised catholic. My parents are mixed religions, jewish and catholics. I've been to one catholic service and I was just really surprised on how pre-meditated it all is. You just read the whole thing, and so if you've been to something that's like holy spirit based. You move with the spirit that comes through you. It's very different, you know. So I was like, wait, we all just read this to each other that's pretty much it.
Falcon Fuhr:We do a meal, so yeah, we do some cardio that most people can't do.
Robin:and then we leave like, whoa, why are we here with it?
Alexis:they already they know what's going on, like we don't even have to be here for this this is interesting, that's because they don't really trust you to come up with anything, because then they won't know what it is.
Falcon Fuhr:And the sermons are very basic. I mean, they just grab something from the Bible and kind of talk about it a little bit.
Alexis:I'm not overly religious, but I'm Christian. I don't know why, to be really blunt, but I always thought Christian meant that you followed the teaching of Jesus.
Chris Sushi :Exactly.
Alexis:And. I keep asking people when we're talking about transgender people, because I am so. When did Jesus say hate thy neighbor. He never did. Oh, really, because that seems to be what they do.
Chris Sushi :Well, you know, long ago it was several years ago and I know y'all have heard this story I worked at a chemical plant and I walked into the break room and I was told I was going to go to hell. And I just kind of stopped and there was three guys in there all with their Bibles.
Robin:Oh, you walked into a work. Bible study exactly that could happen in houston.
Chris Sushi :Yeah, so, anyways, I asked them what gives them the right to tell me that I was going to hell? Yeah, and they touched the bible and said this right here does. And I said I think that's between me and my God, not yours.
Alexis:But see, I'm really big on those things, because when that comes up I'm like, could you show me?
Chris Sushi :Well, this is exactly what I did. This is exactly what I did and two of the guys walked out and the third guy was sitting there and I said can you show me in the Bible?
Robin:where it says that I'm going to hell. Yeah, like could you take your fellow person through the walk of God like you were told to do.
Alexis:No, I just made it with show me With this book that comes, chapter verse cited.
Chris Sushi :You should be able to find exactly that line that you're talking about and show someone the god's, god's way right this is the thing they all like to quote the same line in the bible, but they don't say the whole line, right? They leave it out which one which is man should not lay with man oh, okay okay, this one. The actual line is man should not lay with mankind as he does. His wife, that right there, told me I was fine, just don't sleep around, don't sleep around.
Alexis:If you're committed to somebody.
Falcon Fuhr:Regardless Thanks, Chris. What gives you the right?
Chris Sushi :but that was just my interpretation and I felt at peace with that because back then everybody was called mankind. Do you know where I find the peace with it.
Falcon Fuhr:As far as my lifestyle, because you know I do sleep around, maybe, but you know to be quite serious, though, sure, what I've always said about the bible is this the first gospel, according to mark, was not written until a thousand years after jesus died. So when you look at, I want any of you three to tell me a story from your family from a thousand years ago.
Alexis:I can make one up.
Falcon Fuhr:I know exactly, that's what I'm saying so the Bible is a bunch of stories and we've all played that game where we whisper and you get a line of people and you whisper in the ear and you see how it comes out at the end and it's nothing like what you've heard at the beginning. So it's nothing like what you've heard at the beginning.
Alexis:So that's my interpretation of the Bible.
Falcon Fuhr:It's a good book to take some information from and help with your life, but don't take it verbatim, because these are according to according to John, according to Mark, according to Paul. These are stories from those people who are writing those books, those gospels. It is not supposed to be taken verbatim.
Alexis:Well, but see, it's even better than that, because there was this time, not that long ago, I mean a long time ago right now, but where there were a bunch more books and you know, the Catholic Church went through and decided which ones they liked and which ones they didn't like, to make up the Bible.
Robin:And I'm like so wait, you get to pick and choose. They were editing and banning books in the Bible.
Falcon Fuhr:Yes, oh, they weren't just doing it to the people. There are gospels that are taken out.
Alexis:Yes, okay.
Falcon Fuhr:Ruth and there was three or four of them.
Alexis:Yeah, there's three or four of them, yeah, actually.
Falcon Fuhr:I think there's like 14.
Alexis:Okay, could be Because some of them were pretty risque.
Falcon Fuhr:Yeah, they took out Mary's because they didn't want anything to do with women in the Bible.
Robin:So they took out Mary's. That is clear.
Alexis:Yeah, so yeah. Of course, the other thing that I really find interesting is I love the people that say this is the word of God and you know you can't play play with it. But in 1936, they changed it Right. They didn't have homosexuality or anything close to homosexuality in the Bible until 1936. That was the King James Version. The King James Version, not the Catholic Version.
Falcon Fuhr:That's why I keep telling people the Bible has been rewritten so many times Things have been omitted and added, because here's the other thing, when you are talking about what they were reading from, from like the dead sea scrolls. From my understanding, they're all written in aramaic and nobody knows how to speak aramaic exactly they have to interpret that into italian or english or whatever they usually was greek greek so, and then they went to the next one. Who's to say their interpretations are correct.
Chris Sushi :Not only that, if you were interpreting, they would give you page 7, 25, 65.
Alexis:You never had the whole. Thing.
Chris Sushi :You were never able to read the original.
Alexis:You were doing essentially the word-to-word interpreting, which is worthless, as everybody knows, but of course, I still like the bit that you know Luther did the King James version and that was because he was basically in prison for heresy and they were going to either kill him or he could translate the Bible to English, and so later he actually published some things, pointing out the fact that he did it as tongue in cheek as he possibly could and not get killed, and I'm like, and this is what people worship, okay, whatever, pointing out the fact that he did it as tongue-in-cheek as he possibly could and not get killed. You know, if anybody and I'm like, and this is what people worship, okay, whatever.
Falcon Fuhr:Yeah, I just had this whole thing against organized religion.
Robin:So, do I as you should. There's a lot of violence and harm that happens and even in some of the nicest presenting we only believe from when Jesus died forward. We're all about the love, love, love, love, love you still need to look at where they throw in the exceptions.
Robin:You still need to look at who they actually have as leadership or funders and you, especially in the state of Texas and nationally, can look up a report on places who still do conversion therapy Right, conversion therapy and I'm not trying to land into a pile of triggers, but we do need to still presence that because conversion therapy still happens and that is something that younger people are still being pulled into churches and therapies and they don't know about it. They don't know what they're going through. Their parents may not know about it. They may be blindly faith worshiping of love and then getting christian therapy, which is not licensed therapy, in the back and that can be incredibly harmful well, and also you gotta look at some of those therapies.
Falcon Fuhr:You know what's the difference from them than any other cult. You know I'm not saying religion, I'm talking about the therapy, the conversion therapy, people. So you know, unfortunately I just don't have the type of brain that I could be. You know, I'd be like the Will and Grace version of the conspiracy theory episode.
Robin:Yeah, that would be me, but.
Falcon Fuhr:I just could not. You know I could be assimilated in the military Peace Academy. Had a hard time getting me to.
Robin:I finally realized that to get through some of my careers, I don't I'm too analytical.
Falcon Fuhr:My brain is just. It works from a different angle than everybody else. Where you three are going to come, you know how people say think outside the box. That's me, because you guys are opening the box from the top. I'm digging a hole on the side Right and the funny part is that. I'm usually saying the same thing as everybody else, but they're like taking offense to me. I said the same thing, but it's just a different way.
Alexis:So Chris, one of the things that I.
Falcon Fuhr:Go ahead, pardon, go so for the whole conversion theory, you know. And organized religion. I do consider organized religion as a form of brainwashing. People, you know, we all know that a child born, gets filled all their information, you know, from the time they are zero to five years old. The parents are creating their personalities, um, and it's hard for children to grow up into their teens and start thinking outside that box, um, but luckily I was one of them um me too yeah, the military had a hard time.
Falcon Fuhr:Finally, I'm like, okay, I'll go through the motions and same thing with the Peace Academy and it's after Peace Academy. You know this is 40 years ago and I'm a state trooper and stuff and I'm like, you know there's they were doing racial profiling back then, before that was a term.
Robin:Yes, yes, the term came around because they were doing it.
Falcon Fuhr:yeah and I think that's the biggest issue that we're facing right now is of you know, it is not so much the religious side, it is just humans in nature, um, so we could kind of take the religion of everything in our conversation. Sure, it's just the ignorance of people. Yeah, I don't. I don't necessarily push a gay agenda, a transgender agenda, a black agenda, a um um immigration agenda.
Falcon Fuhr:I'm just the type of person who always says let people do what they want, be who you see, but that's my trans agenda that you just said you know, I think a lot of the problems with the agendas nowadays is especially for the trans community, because you know you only figure that 1.5% of Americans are trans or non-binary. You can fit in almost all those people in the city of Houston.
Alexis:Yeah.
Falcon Fuhr:That's hard.
Alexis:And there needs to be a word added to that, or out as.
Falcon Fuhr:Yes.
Robin:Right, right. And I think something that you're dancing around that I hear is the structures that you were put into the military, the cops, religion, they're not real. Into people having their own self-expression Right, they're not real. They want having their own self-expression. You know they're not real. They want you to perform. That's what I'm saying, you know.
Falcon Fuhr:Yeah, oh yeah it's all brainwashing, milton's brainwashing. Your peace academy's going yeah that's why we have trouble with the police nowadays, because they're being told to do one thing and this is how you're supposed to do it, but that's not the reality of what they're seeing out in the public spaces, and that thing they're told to do isn't called think Right.
Alexis:I'm going to pause this right now because somebody didn't do their part of introducing everyone.
Robin:Somebody didn't do their part.
Alexis:I don't know who it was that didn't do their part. All right, but this is 22 Sides, and I'm Alexis, and I'm alexis and I'm here with robin and oh, you want me to do myself I don't care, I am falcon for kenyan and I'm chris sushi milk yeah okay welcome, welcome, welcome.
Robin:We're happy to have you on 22 sides and you know some of us don't like being told what to do.
Falcon Fuhr:Now that we've just stirred the crap for the last 20 minutes.
Robin:It'll all wash out well.
Alexis:That's the pre-show that gets everybody excited. They're like, oh, this is what this is going to be like. Now we talk about baking.
Falcon Fuhr:Oh, I can do that. I love to cook.
Alexis:So do I. You know I can do that, so do.
Falcon Fuhr:I yeah, but kind of going back to the one point five and the struggles that then you do the whole 10 percent for the LGBT or the LGB side. You know that are that's hard numbers to get across to people as far as acceptance, and I think a lot of people are so busy trying to push. You don't understand me rather than you don't accept me. You know, I think the bigger issue because it goes back to intelligence, I don't understand you. Well, just because you don't understand me doesn't mean that you can accept me.
Robin:Well, I think it also. If, accept me, I think you're right. It goes back to intelligence and I've always looked at it from. If ignorance is present, some of us get violent. And so if animals, humans, don't understand something, some of them, not all of them can get violent. And so between the stimulus of what is this I'm looking at, what is this I'm dealing with, and someone processing that in that gap, that's where we have opportunity. It could be education, it could be running, you know, it could be getting help, it could be de-stressing the situation.
Robin:But a lot of us at this table have grown up with seeing the consequences of the violence part, being told don't be a certain way, or you know, hate can happen, violence can happen. You don't want to be on your own, you know that sort of thing. And then we've lived long enough where we can have tools that educate and I have seen people be open to that. I have seen people say I actually do believe in this thing called love and caring and expression and I just want to know more. I just want to know how. I just want to be respectful, because there are plenty of people who do want to employ, partner, support their fellow human being. They just don't always get the microphone, they just don't always have access to tools.
Alexis:And, you know, one of the things I think that we miss is that our communities tend to get angry very quickly.
Falcon Fuhr:All communities, all communities, yeah.
Alexis:Ours are way above that, because we feel like our rights are being impinged upon and they are. And it's hard to actually fix something if you're angry and it's hard to make people listen to you if you're angry. And I know one of the things I constantly tell people is if you're mad, don't go talk to politicians that you're mad at. Wait till you're calm and have a calm conversation with them, because if you're mad, they're going to get mad and they're going to scream and holler and they're going to act like they're mad even if they aren't, and that's just sort of the way it works. So just back away and talk, you know, be calm about it and you know, if you think that they're, you know basically not giving you your rights, just say I don't think you're giving me my rights. I think I have the same rights you do and you're trying to get rid of them.
Falcon Fuhr:Right.
Alexis:And don't scream and call them names and that whole bit.
Falcon Fuhr:Well, and that goes back to the whole Martin Luther King format of don't get angry, just you know quiet protest and show your numbers, but here's the thing that I've always pointed out to people, though. Let's look at Martin Luther King in 1964 and 65 and the Civil Rights Movement. That happened in 1965, the year I was born. That law was passed 60 years ago. Do black people still have their rights? Are they still being treated as equals? They still, to this day, have to fight for respect.
Alexis:But it's a lot better than it was.
Falcon Fuhr:But the hate is still going to be there.
Alexis:The hate is definitely still there and it is, and I mean go ahead.
Chris Sushi :That goes, I mean I mean even the gay community. All right, because back in the 70s when I came out, you know we fought long and hard to have all these rights and now they're all being taken away and for those listening how old are you, chris?
Robin:I'm 63, and how old are you fucking you?
Falcon Fuhr:just made that up, I saw your face.
Chris Sushi :I'm 64 and I'll be in the same.
Falcon Fuhr:West 64. She's. Her face was totally. How much can I shave off here? It is so great that this isn't videoed she's like I'm a rockin' 25, I'm a 60, carry the two I'm here with all the kids, right?
Alexis:yeah, okay okay.
Robin:So, alexis, you're how old now? 34 okay, come on, come on, come on. How old are you? 76 okay, chris, how old are you? How old are you at 63? Okay, no worries. No worries, falcon how old are you? I'm 60 okay, great, and I'm 42, and so this is actually different ways that we came into it, right have has everyone always been in houston?
Falcon Fuhr:yeah, chris, and I have come into it basically the same way as far as what we experienced um in the 70s and 80s and um you know how long have you two been friends? You've been friends for as long as I've known you 20 years, 20 years.
Robin:Yeah, okay, and I've known you since around 2008.
Alexis:There were those other years where we didn't talk. The question is is this?
Chris Sushi :continuous friendship or not?
Falcon Fuhr:You know, we were really close for a long time, but of course she had to get a relationship. Love you, monica.
Robin:No course she had to get a relationship and love you, monica no, there is a stereotype of you hauling that we could address.
Falcon Fuhr:No, no, I mean, I think you know it's. It's with every relationship and every type of friendship. You know you're still friends, you still care about each other, you still love each other and you're still there for each other when you need each other exactly. But it's. There's a point where you know things change, sure, um, in your lives. You know we were part of the same organization, we both pulled back.
Robin:We're actually remand, we're mending them. There's been a wound we don't know about we have never, had a wound.
Falcon Fuhr:No, no, we've never fought we've never fought. That's wonderful yeah, as a matter of fact, we get each other into trouble. We almost get arrested in hotels in Utah.
Alexis:Not that hard to do.
Robin:Everyone needs a bailout buddy, but a buddy to get them in trouble. I don't know, they can't be the same guy.
Falcon Fuhr:Yeah, that's the problem. There's going to be a jail thing. It's gonna be. We're gonna be in it together, so it's like what do you mean you're separating? Us. We're both non-binary.
Robin:We gotta get in the safe zone there, you go, make it work for you well, chris, you were saying that you've, you came out in the 70s. Is that what you're saying? Yes, and then you've, you've been fighting for your rights, but you've also seen it now being taken away. Is that what you're saying? Yes, and then you've been fighting for your rights, but you've also seen it now being taken away. Is that what you're saying?
Chris Sushi :Okay, just to get it back to that, and we were talking about protests and all earlier in the gay community, and I know we've talked about this before, but in the very first gay pride parade In Houston, in Houston, okay, could have been a riot Right, right, right, right. Yep and HPD showed up in full riot gear, but that was when I was the most proud to be gay, because we wore black car bands and that was it. Hpd even cleared every vehicle within a two block distance from West Homer, thinking we were going to riot, okay, and it was a quiet demonstration that felt so powerful.
Robin:It can bring tears to my eyes today. What were the black armbands?
Chris Sushi :The night before the gay pride parade there was someone who was murdered by HPD because they were sitting next to each other in a bar and the cop said that he hit on them, so he shot him. Okay, and that was the night before gay pride parade. Wow, so yeah, they probably were expecting a lot, they were expecting a full riot and every I mean I've done marches in houston, marches in austin and so on and so forth, but every time we've been in a march it's been organized, it's been peaceful.
Alexis:That's what it has to be.
Chris Sushi :I mean, have we had our little outbreaks from some of our other groups that participate Sure, sure, participate, sure, sure, sure, um, but it just the way we respond to situations is not out of hate, it's out of love, and I think if our relatives would actually listen to the torment that we go through, when we're coming through that realization that there's something different about me than the girl next door. Yeah, and I think, maybe, possibly, is it possible, possibly, yeah, that people could give a shit.
Robin:It's interesting that is a moment that I've been focusing on in conversations is I hope that by sharing myself, people would care, and there's a lot of different campaigns that have been built on that, the visibility campaigns and things like this Like if we just humanize each other, if we just say our common uh interests, then people will care. If we say our trauma, people will care. You know, surely if they just knew what we go through, they would care. And then some, a lot of times they don't, unfortunately, or a lot of times they say, well, no one cared about me, you know and there's.
Robin:There's some. It's some turmoil right there, but I wanted I wanted to ask, just for those who hadn't been at the Pride Parade, what were the black armbands for that you were?
Chris Sushi :Oh, because he was alerted the night before.
Robin:Okay, so it was a quiet demonstration, Quiet demonstration, like yeah, okay. And then were you at the first Pride Parade, Falcon.
Falcon Fuhr:Oh no, I'm way too young.
Robin:No.
Falcon Fuhr:You weren't in Houston then.
Chris Sushi :No, I moved to houston 21 years ago, okay, and alexis wasn't.
Robin:She moved here later, yeah, that long. Well, one of the first pride parades, I went to it. I got to montrose as fast as I could when I was 18 years old and I was actually around pride and had a great experience and everything was fine. But when I was actually going to be walking in pride, my mother had a huge fear that oh, no, no, no, don't do that, you know, because that's where hate can happen and protesters can see you and you would basically be a walking target, which was in her mind.
Robin:And I actually called Chris Volk because I knew that she had been in a few pride parades and whatnot, and we were friends at the time and I said, gosh, I never considered this, has it ever gotten violent? And you told me that story. You were like, no, we had every reason for it to get violent and that was not what we wanted to bring to the table, which is so important to share about history in general and then Houston history, because it was not just a few years ago that a campaign of oh, it started with a riot and Stonewall history started getting overly marketed and I felt like that had, you know, a different form of protest, a different leaning towards violence, and it's like, well, they didn't want that either. Actually, they went to the bar that night, they were taken over that night and the brawl happened when they were taken to the streets. Like that's a lot of like holding yourself back.
Alexis:And that was not a demonstration, right, and it was. Yeah, and that was not a demonstration.
Robin:Right, and it was yeah.
Alexis:Stonewall was not a demonstration. No, it wasn't. I mean no, it was self-preservance. Yeah.
Falcon Fuhr:It was them saying you know, respect me, and you know the fact that it lasted as long as it did, those numbers of days. And actually we have a good friend who's actually a bartender during the riot and he's still at Stonewall.
Chris Sushi :He's still working there.
Falcon Fuhr:I think he's in. Don't hit me, fred. I think he's pushing 90. I think I saw an article on him recently sweetest guy in the world so great yeah, he tells us all the stories of it, and that's somebody you really need to get on your podcast that'd be great, that'd be wonderful but he tells us all the stories and okay, yeah, that's true, yeah, that would be fun because I was at stonewall before the riots yeah, as it turned out.
Alexis:I didn't live in new york, you know. I went through there and it was a scary little, really hole in the wall, horrible bar.
Robin:Now wait a minute. Are people at holes in the walls Like come?
Falcon Fuhr:on. You were there because it was fun. Those dive bars are always the fun part.
Robin:Don't act like we haven't been down a dark alley and had some fun.
Alexis:Well, you know the other thing was that I wasn't of drinking age Right, but since it was a mob bar, they didn't care.
Robin:Chris was like oh well, yeah, do you think I was 18?
Chris Sushi :when I went to my first gay bar? Yeah, and back then drinking age was 18. Yeah, I was like 16 when I walked into Club L'Amour.
Robin:I was 15. In Houston, or where is this? Okay, you were 15 in your first gay bar.
Falcon Fuhr:Yeah, the Parsonage in Detroit.
Robin:Okay, okay, yeah.
Alexis:Somebody posted something on Facebook about what was the first gay bar you ever went into and I was watching and you know people are posting things. And finally I said Stonewall, and yes, that one.
Robin:And nobody posted anything else, mine was Club Rainbow, because that was the place you could get into when you were 18. And then Chances, the lesbian bar, was 21 and up, and they were pretty strict at that point because they kept having cocaine problems.
Falcon Fuhr:Charlotte's 18-year-olds I know?
Alexis:Yeah, it's 18-year-olds.
Robin:They keep bringing in the good drugs cocaine problems well, I mean, if you had just gone down the street to numbers, you probably would have been let in.
Falcon Fuhr:You know, you would probably. I've heard, I've heard those stories. I was a hair back then, but yeah, exactly no it was I, so I've also heard those stories.
Chris Sushi :You know, thinking back, my actual first bar I was like 15, was Mary's.
Robin:Okay, yeah, yeah, mary's. A lot of people have such fond and funny and you know dramatic memories and tender memories of Mary's. It just depends on when you got there and what was going on. Yeah.
Alexis:And you know, the nice thing was that if bad shit was happening and you could scream for the people at Mary's, it got taken care of, oh yeah. And you know, and a lot of times it was people from Chances that were suddenly in trouble because someone drives up and they're going to beat the shit out of all of them.
Chris Sushi :Oh, I remember that. I remember how various you stood. It was like the big brothers, yeah, exactly. And you're like holy shit big people.
Robin:Oh yeah, it gives me goosebumps. So when I met both of you, you were performing with what's called the Royal Court, and that is a global organization. Ulysses, is that the full name of it, or is that the?
Falcon Fuhr:Houston. Name of it the Empire, the Royal Soviet Imperial Court, the Single Star Incorporated.
Robin:And when did you get involved with that? Was it because you kept going to the bars, or how did you find out about both of those?
Falcon Fuhr:things. She was involved first, so you tell your story.
Chris Sushi :Well, I mean, I've always wanted to get involved in something like this and I really wished I found out about a racist in the early 80s, because I got involved in 2005?.
Falcon Fuhr:What year? What year was?
Chris Sushi :it 21?. Oh, Garrett's Right at the beginning of his reign.
Falcon Fuhr:Yeah, that'd be 2005.
Chris Sushi :Yeah, in March of Garrett's reign. So you were right before me, then Okay. And what it was was a group of people caring about somebody else.
Robin:Wow, there you go.
Chris Sushi :And they're entertainers. A lot of egos. That's the biggest thing, don't talk about us.
Falcon Fuhr:Let's talk about the others.
Chris Sushi :And the thing is is the way it is set up, which got started in 65 in San Francisco.
Falcon Fuhr:Okay.
Chris Sushi :The international court system got started and initially what they were doing was just feeding the homeless queers. And then AIDS hit and they were like, okay, we got to really step up.
Falcon Fuhr:What was interesting about the international court system? It started out because of a riot and they were like, okay, we got to really step up. What was interesting about the international court system? It started out because of a riot Wow, because of a raid. I didn't know this, not a riot, but a raid Back in the day, the Widow Norton, as we affectionately called her, joshua. I mean, I'm sorry, I'm blank, I'm I'm blanking out, that's okay, that's okay Hold on, we don't need to fact check everything.
Robin:That's okay.
Chris Sushi :Yeah, really no no, no, no, no, no, no, no no we shouldn't major figure.
Falcon Fuhr:Back then she was performing at a bar called, or a dive called, the Black Cat and she used to do all torch songs in drag. It got raided and they were throwing it in the back of the paddy wagon. This was back in 1964, 65. Okay. And they threw it in the back of the paddy wagon and they said get in the back, you old queen. She goes, I am not a queen, I'm an empress. Started from there.
Robin:Boom.
Falcon Fuhr:People just followed her. She created the court there.
Robin:Okay.
Falcon Fuhr:San Francisco was the first court, the mother court as we call it.
Robin:Some of the best things are created out of delusion, and then it just Hang on a second. What's amazing though is that it spread.
Alexis:It started there.
Falcon Fuhr:Then the other communities around there all started creating courts in South California, spread its way east. So you want to talk about disease, but with Canada we have a court in Mexico glitter is contagious but it's amazing.
Falcon Fuhr:It's an amazing group of people welcoming people who you know. If you don't have a home, if you feel ostracized, if you feel like you don't fit in, join the court because they will make you feel so welcomed. And you know, I'm not saying every court's perfect and I'm not saying ours is perfect, because you know you get you get over five gays in a room. There's going to be arguments about dinner so back to that.
Robin:You know there's a lot of ego, but but what are they doing, like for people who don't know what?
Falcon Fuhr:the court does they?
Robin:came about to, because a lot of people might think of uh, you know, they've seen pose and they have people who house people and then they have people who can we're not that pretty.
Falcon Fuhr:The court system came about more, as you know, before they became a 501c3. It was more of a social thing where they were just going out of the community doing shows, raising money for others. Um, it's kind of like, you know, know pageant babies, you know People would get their starts there and be groomed on how to be a good pageant person and then they would move on to the pageants and stuff. But really, what the court system was before they became a 501c3, before AIDS, was more just a social group.
Falcon Fuhr:And they were just trying to do a little bit of political stuff. Things had to change a little bit because once we became 501c3s we couldn't do the politics. So you had to be very careful what you say and do to maintain your 501c3 status. Okay, so we could talk about politics, but it has to be nonpartisan.
Robin:Right.
Chris Sushi :Okay.
Falcon Fuhr:But anyways, then when AIDS hit, it's pretty much almost every court became a 501c3, because we wanted to make sure that when you donate your money you get that tax break and you're doing something good for people. And it was the drag queens that came out and raised a ton of money for AIDS research, because the government was not going to help us Right, and on the flip side of that, it was the lesbians that took care of those AIDS patients, because when their families were throwing them out, it was the lesbians that stepped up and took care of them. That's why for my reign.
Falcon Fuhr:I made sure I raised money for a lesbian organization.
Robin:And that's when I met you was you were highlighting funds being raised for, I think, the lesbian health initiative.
Falcon Fuhr:No, actually mine was a sister's.
Robin:A sister's Okay.
Falcon Fuhr:I get them confused. My husband did the following year.
Robin:Okay, I get them confused, but they both support lesbians.
Falcon Fuhr:Yes, yeah, and it was a big thing for me because, you know, I saw what they were doing. You know, my one of my best friends died. Sure, we couldn't take him in, you know, it's like I couldn't take him in because I was living with my family at the time. Sure so, but I saw these lesbians stepping up because the AIDS crisis wasn't nearly I'm not saying it doesn't affect them, because it did affect a few, but did not nearly affect them, of course as it did the men, sure, but did not nearly affect them, of course, as did the men. Sure, they stepped up, and that's part of history that people really need to know.
Robin:Well, and a lot of our communities stopped sharing that. So I mean, if we're holding accountability, it could be because the gay men died. But some of the gay men do put their noses up to the ladies, you know. I mean they forget that they were the ones that were there taking care of them.
Falcon Fuhr:I'm telling you, when I was going to the bars back in the 80s, there was the lesbian side and there was the gay men side.
Robin:And there's some good reason for that. It's okay to not mix all things.
Falcon Fuhr:It's like the gay men over here having a drink when they're going to get emotional and start a fight.
Chris Sushi :Watch oh my god, that is so true though. That is so true.
Robin:I used to run one of Houston's largest lesbian bars and oh my god, you can just tell by watching the women, oh shit.
Chris Sushi :And when it was two femme women, we watching the women, oh shit, it started. And when it was two female women, we just backed up.
Falcon Fuhr:Yes, we just backed up, because they are the worst fighters oh yeah, because they grab hair, they scratch they have nails, they fight.
Chris Sushi :Yes, oh, we would just stand back and make sure they didn't hurt themselves that's fair, just a little more.
Falcon Fuhr:and here's the drag queen fights somebody, they kick their nails off because they don't want to be charged with homicide. Yeah, yeah.
Robin:They're like I'm going to need these for the next number.
Chris Sushi :Right.
Robin:Well, what lesbian bar did you run, Chris, in Houston? It was a bar here in Houston called Twins.
Chris Sushi :Okay, twins, and it was located at Stanford and Westheimer Okay. The front of it was the Midnight Sun Okay, which was a really big. A lot of the young kids went there to find daddies.
Robin:Okay, okay, okay, okay. Where's this place at? I need it, find daddies. Okay, okay, okay, okay. Where's this place at?
Chris Sushi :Not anymore. It's closed. Okay, and that was the front porch of the house.
Robin:It was a daddy for people who don't know, because I know you're getting emotional over there.
Falcon Fuhr:Yeah, falcon, yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, daddy is a mindset for some and a physical appearance for others. Um, I'm in the physical appearance, but I'm also in the mindset. Um, it depends on how you want to look at. You can look at just the, the socialized version of daddy, which is just, you know, guys looking for older guys, or sugar daddies looking to be supported, okay, which is what I've taken, where Chris is going with it, sure, but then you've got the whole other aspect side of daddy, sir and master.
Robin:Okay.
Falcon Fuhr:So that's a different subject altogether.
Robin:Sure Chris is talking about sugar daddies, right?
Falcon Fuhr:okay, just young guys going in trying to find somebody but you were saying it was a lesbian bar that no, the front part, the front porch, was a men's bar oh how inclusive the rest.
Chris Sushi :Back then we got along the rest of the house was a lesbian bar.
Alexis:Well, hey, Until you try to find parking, but we've always had parking wars, haven't we, mm-hmm? Ever since I came to Houston, especially in Montrose yeah, the Montrose area, did you ever get to?
Robin:go there. Hmm, did you ever get to go there to Twins? Is that what it's called, twins?
Chris Sushi :It was very, we were very.
Falcon Fuhr:Female only.
Chris Sushi :Yeah, okay, back then. And now you had to be escorted. Okay, okay, you had to know somebody Because, you know, we wanted to keep the women safe, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, and there was a lot of stuff going on back then. Sure, we had our main thing and this came up earlier on the bars getting busted, right right, okay, yeah and folks, if you're younger than back in the day, they would literally turn the house lights on, line everybody up against the law, which was illegal at the time, and check every single person's ID.
Robin:Okay. And list it and list it.
Falcon Fuhr:In some cities they would actually post your name and address Like in the paper, In the papers.
Robin:Okay. Is this associated with what was called the lavender scare or no? I don't know when.
Falcon Fuhr:people were worried about people being publicly outed from their jobs and oh, yes, definitely okay okay, yeah, that's the whole purpose of doing that is to scare you from going to those bars okay okay, so they lined you up by scaring people away from them okay, but in it took your IDs In the late 70s and early 80s it would start on the far end of West Terminal Uh-huh, and when that first bar got busted they would call the next bar Right, hey, they're on their way.
Robin:Hey, they're on their way and they would come. There was a lot of bars in Houston, all the way down West.
Chris Sushi :Terminal, but all down west, but all the bars talk to each other so we can get the underage kids out and if anybody's stupid in their carrying they can get out. This is before instagram, by the way for all you young people, and before cell phones that was the gay telephone tree, exactly okay and that's funny because you know.
Falcon Fuhr:It's funny because it's like I don't think anybody knows what a phone tree is anymore, do they? Yeah, that's true.
Robin:I don't know.
Alexis:I don't think they do.
Robin:That's the equivalent of a group text. Okay Right, yeah, okay, okay, yep.
Chris Sushi :We got three lines, but yeah, it was a whole different mindset.
Robin:So they would take your ID, and then what would happen?
Chris Sushi :They would take you to jail if you were underage.
Alexis:Okay, or if they could come up with anything else.
Chris Sushi :Anything else right? What law was it? I mean, what year was that law changed that women had to wear three items of clothing, women's clothing, and the men had to have on three items of men's clothing?
Falcon Fuhr:I don't know, but I know that was a time, I know that was a period.
Alexis:We have all the lawsuit stuff in our archive. Because Phyllis is the one that finally got the last one of them done.
Falcon Fuhr:That would still not work nowadays.
Chris Sushi :I will get her jail. I do not have one item one's clothing on. Yeah, you don't. There was a bar.
Alexis:Oh gosh, I have no items of men clothing on, so between us.
Chris Sushi :We're going to jail or not, or not, I don't know. That's not mine, that's theirs. Dallas, west Dallas. Wait, am I the only one wearing a bra here? No, on West Dallas there was a bar called Rocky's. Okay.
Robin:Yeah, I remember that one, and this is early 80s, I remember going there.
Chris Sushi :And you would knock on the door, okay, and they would open a little door. Okay, easy exactly it was ran just like a speakeasy and they had even it was. They had the light the whole nine yards and explained that when the cops you know they would open the door, see it was cops set that light yeah everybody would switch tables, pull the tables off the dance or put the tables on the dance floor because they weren't supposed to be dancing, oh okay, and set bordero at all the tables.
Robin:Uh-huh, and that was so cool to hear about that type of stuff from somebody who was there, and rocky was there, uh-huh yeah, and now they market that to hipsters If you can find a speakeasy. It's more of a marketed phenomenon, not a. We fucking live through that.
Alexis:That's not a fun night. It's actually not as much fun and excitement as when the police show up for real, oh yeah.
Falcon Fuhr:I'll go there going. I've got that uniform. Show up for real. Oh yeah, oh yeah, I was right there going I've got that uniform. Doesn't fit anymore.
Robin:But well, it was interesting. One time I know that, chris, you left home driving without your wallet and you got picked up from the cops and you were there for not driving without an id right. And one of the neatest things about having a bar community is the minute she got discharged. She just walked to the nearest bar and they were able to take her home. They were able to know her they were able to help her.
Chris Sushi :You know I mean. So when people are like well, what?
Robin:am I going to do now? You know it's like well, if you have friends at the nearest bar, like, just go. You know that that's a little bit of community spirit that people don't get out in the suburbs that they don't they may not know about from just being online, that they have never ventured in and actually taken the time to grow those relationships yeah, shortly after I came to houston they were doing the bar raids down the street, one after one after one, and it was really funny because I'm trying to remember the name of the bar.
Alexis:But we were on their phone tree and I say we it's me and several other people because we would get the call saying, okay, start collecting bail money, and so we'd start pulling out bail money. So then if somebody was Go fund me Pretty much, but it was a different kind.
Alexis:And you know, because every now and then it'd be like, okay, there were like 20 people arrested and only 18 of them were out. What's going on with the other two? And you know, you could find lawyers who'd go find out and it's like, oh, they need bail because they decided they weren't going to just let them out. And it's like, oh, they need bail because they decided they weren't going to just let them out.
Chris Sushi :And it's like, okay, so we'll put up the bail. And that was. We were constantly being harassed by HPD, I mean even down to Now they joined the parade To me.
Alexis:That's one of those wins.
Robin:It's a win, I mean that took a lot of years a lot of people do now ask like in some cities the cops do not go to the parades and they're not included. And they're, you know it's very separate because there's fights. But in Houston the cops do walk in the parade. They are some of them are LGBT oh, some they're definitely keeping.
Falcon Fuhr:I've got a uniform, they're definitely keeping.
Robin:I've got a uniform. They're definitely working with pride to keep the whole parade safe. I think, mainly because it's such a huge event. It is, I mean, I don't you know there, but they have a little, um like a not a child pin but an adult pin for the protesters, a little protesting section that protesters can stay in and so they stay in and they protest there the whole time.
Robin:They bring their little signs and little microphones and we have a spot for them too, and the funny thing is is that the gay people protest back you know.
Alexis:So there's, there's actually like oh no, they pose with them yeah there was one year and I don't remember when it was we were still in montrose with the parade and we're going down and they stop us because they're like we've got some protesters down here and we're like whatever, uh, you know, and so one of the assistant chiefs had shown up and he had lots of HPD people there and there's like 20 protesters and they're throwing stuff and they have signs and they're trying to hit people in the parade. And so he's like okay, I'm going to ask y'all to to leave. And here's the thing. And they've got horses lined up in front of them. He said right now I can escort you back to your car safely when I'm done with this speech. We either go back to your cars or we all leave, because if you look around, there's about 25 of us, there's 300,000 of them. I'm not going to get into that fight with you, so good luck.
Alexis:And the guy who was just pumping everybody on. We're sitting there on the float waiting to be allowed to go. He said, no, we're staying, etc. You should look behind you.
Robin:All of his supporters are gone one of the first years I walked with the Transgender Foundation of America. The Houston Transgender Unity Committee was with Alexis and there was some. There were some walkers and then there was a truck like that you could get on and that's really helpful. We don't want to walk everything and there were, of all things I don't know, like some sort of uh, I don't know, like some sort of I don't know group takeover from Christians, like I don't know what to call them they broke through the barriers, they jumped on our trailer some of them and then some of them were reaching in through the driver to get the sound system and they put their Christian iPod on our sound system.
Robin:And the funniest thing was we were like, no, that's a horrible playlist.
Falcon Fuhr:We kept the iPod, by the way. Typical gay fashion. Everybody would have been right up there going yeah, let's dance to this. Yeah.
Chris Sushi :There was a little missing.
Alexis:And then you know, there's this cop standing there just looking around and I'm like you. You're supposed to protect us. They aren't ours.
Robin:Get them out of here and they're like well, how do you know? We're like, because that's not our playlist. And then some people were from our community, were like wait, so we can break the barrier and just walk with you guys. And then they started walking with us, you know. And so the Christians had like, I mean all of like three seconds of whatever they were supposed to do. I don't know what their plan was. It was really bad.
Falcon Fuhr:I'll be quite honest. The year I was in the parade where I had to be on the float. I hated it.
Robin:Yeah, some people love that part and some people love walking better and some people don't have a choice.
Falcon Fuhr:It was the year I was emperor. Did you have to do a float when you were emperor?
Chris Sushi :I did a float.
Alexis:Yeah because you have a job to be there and wave.
Falcon Fuhr:Yeah, my empress and I were up there and my empress is a real woman, so not a drag queen. So it only happened a few times in our court history a real woman, so not a drag queen, so it only happened a few times in our court history. But anyways, we were both up there regalia crowns and we were pretty much standing behind a truck cabin and the whole parade route. I'm waving, thinking I am a target, I am a target.
Alexis:I am a target. You miss that in your job description. Oh, it freaked me out. I've never told anybody this.
Falcon Fuhr:No, no, I've never told anybody this, but I literally was like wow, freaked out the whole time, nice, shiny crown, and it's like oh you can see that at night it's parkles let's go for that target.
Alexis:It's like three inches below.
Robin:Yeah, it's a night parade and no, thank you for saying that and sharing that, and it's. It's interesting what thoughts and memories come up after you've been through a few years and some people prefer to watch, uh, the parade and just celebrate on the side. Some people prefer to walk and then and again, like some people don't have a mobility choice. But uh, back to when my mom was worried about the protesters, I was like, so I'm not going to be at the parade, I'm going to be in the parade. And that did not comfort her because she thought it would be a target, right. I was like, look, I mean, it's already planned, this is what's happening. And I was with the houston genderman, a drag troupe that was aside the court. I think every city that's actually big and developed in their lgbtq community should have like a court and a and a drag troupe, you know, like options and you know the court was always supportive to the troop.
Robin:The troop was always supportive to the court and oftentimes we'd see each other in the airport traveling to shows completely unplanned but super cool and and uh, we had a spot in the parade that you know ended up costing more and more money every year. And then we had less and less troop members walking with us because they were walking with the trans float and some of them were transitioning or some of their friends were over there.
Alexis:So I was like, can we talk?
Robin:about this ahead of time.
Alexis:And we invited anybody. Yes, if you want to walk with us, we're good with it. We need all the friends we can get it was just more fun.
Robin:And so here I am in this rainbow wig which is not quite what I would necessarily do on stage, but it was catchy with a top hat and I got put on the news because it was sort of pride showy and not everyone dresses at pride, but I was and I was performing behind the uh, behind the trailer, the, the walking part of the trans float, and this camera came right up to my face and then my phone buzzed. My sister, text mom, saw you on the news and I was like, all right, well, at least she does. I'm okay, you know. But I mean, after going to a few parades, if you've been in them, you know when it gets cut off, you know when the floats go one way and the people go the other way.
Robin:You know when hpd never gives out their safety plan, so you never know where you're going, but hopefully you parked a car, you know. Um, we've been through a lot and I will say that pride is for me a lot of things, but being in the actual walking part, it can be a huge celebration of one another that I have only felt any other time. I have only felt that level of celebration on stage for performing and I really appreciate whether it was the court or your individual performances and your shows that you've done for all the many reasons, reasons, uh, there's been like other groups besides the court group and fundraising and just fun, fun raising for bringing people together, bringing people out of their homes, bringing people to connect, and it's it has been a really positive experience. Yeah, there's things going on on stage, but there's a whole lot going on in the crowd and the audience as far as like seeing one another, catching up with one another, like literally getting that isolation, stiffness that we all kind of get on our own chipped away by being with one another again.
Robin:And so when some people who have never been to bars or you know maybe, are sober and afraid to go to bars, they ask well, why? Well, why bars? You know why. Who cares if they shut down or don't shut down? You know it's. It's hard to explain unless you've been there during some of these show times or these intentional development times. It's not all the time. Sometimes a bar is a bar but, like, we have experienced a lot of community in those walls. That I'm very thankful for, because you two have facilitated a lot of those shows and been in a lot of those shows, way more than some people even volunteer their, their time, right and um. You never thanked for all those ripples that you put out, but they're. They're definitely there on the stage, in the crowd and back in the dressing room, if there is one, you know, you know now that you make me think about.
Falcon Fuhr:We've done a lot of shows, a lot of shows, a lot of shows. It's been 20 years. It's been 20 years A lot of shows, Doing a lot of events, and we're not talking quarterly shows, we're talking a few shows a week, weekly, weekly, yeah, you know, I a day Like a lot. We've done two or three a day.
Chris Sushi :And especially when you're raining, you're expecting to go to every community event in town.
Alexis:There's a lot of them.
Robin:There's a lot, and sometimes out of town, right, like you travel a lot, oh yeah.
Chris Sushi :But I can remember sliding into some bars right in front of Dalton and he'd take a picture of me.
Robin:And I'd go to the next thing. Yeah, because you couldn't spend. Yeah.
Chris Sushi :You know, but I had proof, I was there.
Robin:While working, While living your life Like it is a lot. And you know, with the court, sometimes younger people like myself and the people that were performing in my troop, that would be the only time that they could travel, because the court absorbed some of the costs. The court was no, no, you there. I don't want to say anything outside of the lines, but I'm saying like, when you are not used to traveling, you would share hotel rooms.
Chris Sushi :Oh yes, but the court didn't pay for it. No, okay, I'm not trying to traveling. You would share hotel rooms? Oh yes, yes, but the court didn't pay for it.
Robin:No, okay, I'm not trying to say anything that would get anybody in trouble or anything, but I'm just saying when you're young, you don't have hotel money, when you have never been on a flight, when you share points.
Chris Sushi :We're pretty good about doing that, you guys absolutely were.
Robin:There were people in the troop like Kuma who had never really traveled that much or performed that much, and it's not just about going to your local bar when you have to get on a plane and go to other coordinations and things like this. Like the court was pivotal to having some people have those experiences and you want to take it like outside of the court. A lot of people in Texas have never even traveled out of Texas, so I mean that's a phenomenal gift when you think about it like that.
Robin:And for me, seeing like the international representation at the local Houston coronations and things was really wonderful to see people fly into Houston. You know, you two have, you know, definitely facilitated that to the International Drag King Extravaganza with me to see if we were going to host that before they stopped their conference because the court could support other performers throwing things at a hotel. We wrote up a business contract and actually full disclosure. They were really uncomfortable about the fact that men were involved.
Chris Sushi :You know it's hard and all the different organizations here in Houston were like let's do this, let's do this.
Robin:They were excited. You know All the different organizations here in Houston were like let's do this. They were excited. You know all the different men's organizations. It wasn't just the court.
Alexis:Yeah, it wasn't just the court it was another group wanted to help you out and you know, and that's one thing that people outside of Houston just don't understand, and they don't understand, I mean we are very cohesive here in Houston as far as how we pray and we get people in the trans community say well, you ought to talk to these people, and these people Like we do, we do yeah, you know yeah.
Robin:Yeah, right.
Alexis:There's no talk to them.
Robin:It's like and before we move on, there's something in my memory of your core experience, if you don't mind, mind and I think Falcon had something to do the most with this when the Creating Change Conference came to Houston with the National Task Force, it was around the time that you were working with the movement to do the Harvey Milk Stamp. What was that about, like? What kind of process did that take? I mean, activism comes in many forms and some people can hear about performance all day long and that's not going to be their thing, but getting work and visibility into stamps like that was that seemed kind of unique.
Falcon Fuhr:Okay, that comes from the international court system.
Robin:Okay.
Falcon Fuhr:I really had nothing as far as developing it, I just promoted it.
Chris Sushi :Okay.
Falcon Fuhr:All the court members try to promote it. Okay, throughout the whole system. But that was from our fairness leader, nicole the Great. Okay, and she develops this. Right now we have the same stamp program going on for Bayard Tongue twister. Okay, I can't say it, you can't say's okay, that's okay, but uh- huh, I'll, I'll get sushi to say it in just a moment anyways we have um, um there's a new stamp campaign.
Robin:Is that what you're talking about? We?
Falcon Fuhr:do have a new stamp campaign okay so, but the harvey milk one. And it wasn't just a stamp, it was also the, the, ship name the ship yeah, so we have a naval ship named after harvey milk oh what a male ship a naval ship.
Chris Sushi :A naval ship, a naval ship, yes, okay. So for guns, okay for people who have never sent snail mail.
Robin:We were talking about snail mail stamps. That is no, we're talking about a military ship no, no, but you got harvey milk on a little stamp, right, okay, okay. And then there's a ship situation. The person's name I'm trying to say doesn't seem like.
Falcon Fuhr:I can say it without. Let's sushi say it. I have an accent.
Robin:Let's sushi say it so it's the second one down.
Alexis:There.
Falcon Fuhr:What's the last name?
Chris Sushi :Is his name Rustin Bayard?
Falcon Fuhr:No, bayard Rustin, Bayard Rustin.
Alexis:Bayard Rustin.
Falcon Fuhr:He's an activist, he's the one that was actually. He was a gay man that actually worked on the civil rights movements with Martin Luther King Jr. He was his right hand.
Robin:Okay.
Falcon Fuhr:But we're trying to do his stamp campaign right now. So it's Bayard Rustin, did I finally get it all right? There's certain words I cannot say properly. That, justin, did I finally get it all right? There's certain words I cannot say properly. That's okay, but anyway. So the stamp campaign came from Nicola Great. She does a lot of campaigns like this and it came about years ago. But I was part of the international court system as far as being an heir and working on those committees on an international level.
Robin:So why would someone do a stamp campaign?
Falcon Fuhr:Why would somebody do a stamp campaign Visibility? Okay, let's get ourselves out there. Okay, you know we need our history put out there. We have Harvey Milk. We're working on Barry Rustin. I'm sure Jose Saria is going to come up pretty soon. Okay, so you're talking about people who were on the forefront of activism and you know the civil rights of Barry Rustin and Harvey Milk being the first gay electric official. And Jose Saria started the whole international court system, which is the second largest LGBT plus fundraising system in North America.
Robin:Okay, so I mean that's important, it's all in history.
Chris Sushi :And Harvey were good friends. They were.
Falcon Fuhr:Okay, everybody knew Jose.
Alexis:I mean okay, If you went to that funeral.
Falcon Fuhr:you would have realized when I went to Jose Sarri's funeral, the Widow of Northern's funeral we had to literally they blocked off the city of San Francisco because we had to go to this cemetery way out, far away from the city, and the way they had to move the cars from all those city blocks, it was like a parade, sure that's fun how they had to merge cars together and all this stuff, I'm not going.
Robin:This is insane yeah it's a parade, but it was a parade and it was a long parade.
Falcon Fuhr:Wow.
Chris Sushi :And you gotta keep in mind most of us flew in I
Falcon Fuhr:had a rental car, so all of us flew in Sure and those cars were full of people. Yeah, that's wonderful it took us a long time to get those cards out, but that's just who Jose Saria is, and I hope people do go on to Wikipedia and look up Jose Saria and learn everything about him, because he was an amazing person, okay.
Chris Sushi :You'd be surprised at all the things that he was responsible for, and he was in politics in San Francisco. I mean, he was amazing in all the things he accomplished in his lifetime.
Falcon Fuhr:He was the first gay person in America to run for office. Harvey Milk was the first gay person to be elected to office.
Robin:Okay, okay, and I can't get this ship thing out of my head. So what happened with the ship?
Falcon Fuhr:We did a campaign, the same thing. We did a writing campaign to the congress. You know the mail campaign goes to the postmaster general. We did another one for the um. I'm sure it has to do with the military um, head of navy or whatever, but we did a campaign where we wrote in the writing campaign that's all it is.
Robin:It's a writing campaign, wow and so they put names on the sides of ships to hold history. Is that what we're pointing to?
Falcon Fuhr:yeah, so it's like okay, so another visibility thing right, but also with the government, which is a big deal, and I didn't really want to mention because I'm sure trump's going to turn around and say no, we gotta change that name. I figured.
Robin:I'm pretty sure he's going to turn around and say, no, we've got to change that name. I'm pretty sure he's listening. No, just kidding. So we want to highlight different forms of activism, because it's not always take to the streets, right, it is through stamps, it is through the ships, it is through performance and it's important for people to know because they may not really see that as as uh as activism. So you can actually look up the us and harvey milk ship and it pops right up. So falcon is showing me this on uh wikipedia and that's wonderful.
Alexis:so what kind of ship is it?
Falcon Fuhr:girl her glasses on either I know.
Chris Sushi :That's why I asked for it and take it by the way girl was spelled G-U-R-L.
Falcon Fuhr:That's the gay version.
Alexis:Lots of you. I'll take anything.
Falcon Fuhr:We're allowed to use that, yes, no, it's funny Years ago a friend of mine has transitioned. Sebastian and the great Chris Ar'Ready. Love and I were talking to Sebastian and Sebastian was talking about getting his top surgery, of course, and I'm like fantastic girl. And Chris goes. What the hell? I said what?
Robin:And the way I said it sounded very bad. I said fantastic girl. So I have to make sure I say it right and Chris was like and the way I said it sounded very bad.
Falcon Fuhr:I said fantastic girl so. I have to make sure I say it right and it was, Chris was like what the hell I said what you called him girl.
Alexis:I said G-U-R-L and Sebastian goes. I knew what he was saying.
Robin:It's all in the intention.
Falcon Fuhr:Well, and that's amazing comment right there yes um, because that that is kind of a subject I do want to go on to all right.
Robin:Well, let's go on to.
Falcon Fuhr:It is intention because we kind of talked about this sure um last year we created the day of mantras contest yes, you did and robin was my mentor as far as okay, I know I'm gonna fuck this up when I get up on stage so you're gonna have to be, right there and say he didn't mean it he had the best intentions and I know the intention police in psychology would be like intentions mean nothing actually come on so I've always been this, this. I'm the worst person with pronouns.
Robin:Sure no you aren't?
Falcon Fuhr:Yeah, Actually I am because I just called Robin girl.
Chris Sushi :That's why I had to correct myself, no worries.
Falcon Fuhr:But I'm the worst person with pronouns. But one thing we kind of talked about was in our community, the GLBT plus, we are getting almost militant non-binary people coming at us saying you don't respect me, because we don't always know what their pronouns are right.
Falcon Fuhr:Sometimes they don't always know what their pronouns are Right, right, and even if they, sometimes they don't know Thank you, but that's always been a big issue of mine, is not so much about you know your pronoun. Yes, people should be respectful of your pronoun. Sure, I'm 60 years old. Sushi is 63. Yes, people should be respectful of your pronoun Sure, I'm 60 years old. Sushi is 63. It's hard to train an old dog to do new tricks. Sure, you know, we didn't have this in our faces as we grew up.
Robin:You did not.
Falcon Fuhr:And so when I looked at the statistics yes, I did read things, okay good the statistics?
Robin:yes, I did read things when I looked at the statistics of transgenders and non-binary.
Falcon Fuhr:As far as the major population, it's between the ages of 13 to 29. That is going to be the majority of them.
Robin:That are out, that were studied.
Falcon Fuhr:Well, in a survey. A legitimate survey, a legitimate survey. Okay, it was not done in front of McDonald's yeah, yeah, so, but probably would have been better. Yeah, right and I kind of try to tell people this. You know, when you're dealing with people who are older, have patience yes, have patience. Yes, because and I go back, you know, to my younger days, when I was a teenager and you know not to offend anybody because I don't want to offend anybody, but my dad still called black people colored people okay his whole life right that's what he was growing up with.
Falcon Fuhr:That's what he learned.
Robin:He wasn't being derogatory he wasn't trying to be racist.
Chris Sushi :That's what he learned and the funny part is I'm like 17, 18 and he worked.
Falcon Fuhr:I grew up in Flint, michigan. He were for Chevrolet in the factories they had bring your family to work day. His co-workers, who are black, call themselves colored people, so I'm like color each other colored so I'm not going. Okay, now I get it. Um, so it's hard to break going back to my father, because I kept on saying you know, dad, that's, that's not the term anymore right and he's like no well, it goes back to ignorance it does well
Alexis:and hold on hold on, no, no, no on hold on, Let me let me. You've got a lot to say today. Okay, go ahead.
Robin:All right, I just threw Sushi and Alexis out of their chairs. Okay, go ahead.
Alexis:You know, basically, I grew up in Southern Illinois. I was essentially raised by a black lady. That would be current day, and if I ever said black, she would have probably beat me because she was a colored person and she wanted to be colored. Now you know she's dead now, so do I change? I don't think so it's.
Falcon Fuhr:It's hard, like I said, you know, when she said when um I it. When they said that it comes off ignorant, it partially does, because you should change generational. It's hard for us old people to do that.
Robin:Well, I'm an old person Sushi's old, with respect, sushi wanted to talk too, so what would you say, do you remember?
Chris Sushi :the conversation 10 years ago it had to have been longer 10 years ago. We have talked a lot. Which one are you say Do?
Robin:you remember that conversation 10 years ago? It had to have been longer than 10 years ago. We have talked a lot. Which one are you remembering?
Chris Sushi :I'm talking about the meeting that the gentleman called me to Go for. It Was this when you were reigning? No, it was before I was reigning I was single. Yeah, I don't think so and there was a large group.
Robin:Probably around 2009,.
Chris Sushi :I would say yeah, but how many was there?
Robin:About 15 of the troop members and I asked her why were they asking me to come?
Chris Sushi :And she's like well, I really don't know, and I'm thinking in my head it's about doing shows, performing. No, no, it wasn't. It was because I was using the improper pronouns. All right, this, it was still fairly new in our community very new at that time yes, and but it was the work that our generations did right that gave them the right to even use those pronouns so don't jump don't you know. So I told them to excuse me for being an old dyke, that's true, come through.
Chris Sushi :Okay, come that. We, we work for y'all, uh-huh, so don't jump me, because I'm using the wrong pronoun that's.
Falcon Fuhr:But you know that started to be a hard argument to sell to people that they don't see the work that we do, and that was her experience there.
Robin:Yeah, because I gave her some examples and all of what we all had to do. She gave a lot of examples a lot of history, personal history too.
Falcon Fuhr:Personal history, the history of the GLBT community and the struggles we've gone through over these years, and people are forgetting these new kids are not learning about them right?
Robin:they're not, and and they're not seeing. They're not. They're just now re-seeing the world of what created the matthew shepherd into a story. Exactly so I mean the hate that he was uh experiencing that caused his murder. It was not so forward facing as it is coming right back now for a few years.
Robin:I mean, when you have a president in the White House that allows for the students to change their pronouns once a semester, obama with the EOC then I mean that's a very different world than we were presented. It doesn't make it immediately peaceful, it doesn't make it forever available, apparently, and but. But there have been kids that have grown up to be in their expression, that they want to be in, and now they're grappling with whoa. What happens when it's taken away? What do you mean? And people are conflating that very rudely with what they call a Disney experience, right? But kids of a certain generation that were allowed to have hormone suppressants were allowed to pick their pronouns and and say who they were, safely in their homes and still be housed and loved and praised. They were not just told, hey, kid, you could be whatever you want to be, and then they have it taken away. No, they, they have very loving, supporting families who understand this, who research this, who get it. They're not perfect, but they have chosen as their families with their kids on how they're going to raise them, not to kill them, not, you know, push them out of the house. So the community has to take care of them, because these are now houseless people. You know, like you know there's, there are parents that have taken the actions to make safe spaces and then now, politically and systematically, a lot of it is shifting and that's kind of scary.
Robin:But the thing that I was going to say is is and I and I do appreciate hearing both all three of you and stepping back and pausing, that's the point for me is that when ignorance happens, what space can we allot for? Sometimes we cannot give a lot of space if violence comes up, but if somebody says the wrong pronoun, the wrong racial label, the wrong whatever, how can we pause in that moment and get their intentions? One, it may create more safety for the both of you. Two, we might be able to have a conversation and it's in that conversation that I think a lot of us can actually learn something. Are we going to be perfect? No, it takes practice, you know, but the intentions are there and it's really really important in this time to not police people, because in ignorance yes, especially in our community.
Robin:We need to come together because in ignorance, if you're suppressing that, there's nothing wrong with ignorance. Like I don't know how to fly a plane, I am ignorant to that. That's not a problem, unless I'm in a plane that's going down, which could happen these days, like then I'm. I need to be educated, right? If I have never met somebody that had a different expression, if I was not told the appropriate labels and things to use, if I was not shown that, if I didn't put it in practice. Those are called learning curves for a reason. So even because Obama and the EEOC allowed for pronouns to be changed in schools and things like this, you know that doesn't mean immediately all the older teachers know how to apply it or have the space to apply it per student. It was not perfect, like you know, even when those things are implemented, it still takes a lot of time. Education takes a lot of time. That's why I always go back to intention. Everybody at this table can tell when somebody wants to kill us.
Alexis:They don't need to say anything. That's the big thing. It's the intent that matters. And the younger trans people. I'm like you know, if someone comes up and they misgender you, how does it sound? Does it sound like they're doing it on purpose, to be mean?
Robin:In which case, go for it, it's all yours, on the other hand, if it's just somebody who couldn't tell me.
Alexis:I've had situations where, in a situation where I know someone is trans, I don't know which way they're transitioning. They're sort of at that point in between, and so I will very politely say OK, so which pronouns do I use? And about half the time I get this very angry person who said well, can't you tell I'm like I wouldn't have asked if I could tell. Get this very angry person who said well, can't you tell I'm like I wouldn't have asked if I could tell. And you know, and they're like well, you know, that's up to you, and I'm like okay, and I'll just pick one and wait.
Falcon Fuhr:They actually say that's up to you. Oh yeah, then why? Why did you ask the question? Can't you tell?
Alexis:I mean it's stupid, and usually I'll pick one and they won't like it and I'm like that's why I love traveling with Chris is because you either have to tell me or else no, I've seen Chris.
Falcon Fuhr:We'll be at a restaurant and I'll see a busboy come up and say here's your water, ma'am, and the waiter will come up and say, sir, what would you like to eat? And she won't react either way.
Chris Sushi :Because I don't identify as either and either way, because I don't identify as either and because I don't identify as either, neither one of them bother me. Now I work in retail and I have customers that call me he-she's after they tell me I'm prejudiced, right.
Falcon Fuhr:They call you a he-she After they tell me I'm prejudiced Right.
Chris Sushi :They call you a he-she After they tell me I'm being prejudiced towards them.
Alexis:You probably are, because you would consider them nice people.
Falcon Fuhr:Is it because you're more bush than them. I was a female.
Chris Sushi :It was a female.
Falcon Fuhr:So you were more bush.
Chris Sushi :But something I gotta really watch is my response to anything like that, right.
Robin:That's what I'm saying In that moment of ignorance. What are we assessing? That wasn't ignorance, that was.
Alexis:I was going to say they know exactly what they're doing. Oh yeah, they were trying to hurt me.
Chris Sushi :They were trying to hurt me.
Robin:So the intention is they were trying to hurt you, oh yeah, but it didn't bother me, Right?
Robin:They were trying to hurt, so the intention is they were trying to hurt you, oh yeah, but it didn't bother me, right, right, I mean come on, yeah Well, and some people would get bothered. That's what Falcon is trying to say. You know they're trying and even in our own communities they're bringing that agitation. They're bringing that policing because they're either having to bring it with a lot of community all the time because people can't tell, because they're mid-transition, because they're mad about their, their place in the world. But when they bring it into our own community, we're not creating bridges, but people who are hateful intentionally, because what you can't see right now is, like chris is very masculine presenting, you know, and that can be.
Robin:There's probably a lot of people all day long, like what you're saying, the waiter versus the busboy who are just trained to serve by leading with saying miss or ma'am or, you know, sir or miss, like in hospitality. They don't mean anything cruel, they're just trying to do their job bring the beverages, beverages, bring the food, all this other stuff. But people who are calling you, he, she's, are seeing you, uh, you know, as your 50 foot diker, you know, like, this is one of them on that radar ahead, you know, and and they've got their, their uh mean slur ready and probably still insisting that you help them at the store oh yeah, and so you're put in a position where you have to keep your job, hold your tongue, not pay it any mind.
Robin:And that is what younger people need to learn is that they're not going to be always accommodated in general, but especially in a society that doesn't want to accommodate expression or, you know, transition or anybody besides the heteronormative, like majority.
Alexis:Well, and see, one of the things that I've been talking about off and on for a while is oh, let's go back 15 years, and I'm just picking a random one. About then I noticed that trans people, for instance, started showing up everywhere. About then, I noticed that trans people, for instance, started showing up everywhere they were on TV shows, you know one, and then several, and then it's like every TV show or series has to have a trans person and you would see them being interviewed on the news. A whole lot more. I mean lots of things that sort of felt positive, and I kept telling people we need to be careful because we're going to, you know, basically get a backlash and because there's a lot of people that we're just basically poking and tweaking and just back off and enjoy it and you know, didn't happen, and you know we're getting a backlash now. Well, you know you have to deal with it and you have to be careful about what you do yes and no.
Falcon Fuhr:Here's the thing that I've always told people from my experience. You know, I've had some people ask me why are you know? Why is everybody in your group so militant? Why are they so in your face and why are we getting all these commercials and why are we doing this and why are we doing that? I, I said and I always responded with because you are putting us on a platform, so we're going to use that platform. You know, if you shut up about us, we have no reason to talk about you. You know, the best way to stop us from being so militant and in your face is to shut up about us and not care about us. Don, a militant in your face is to shut up about us and not care about us. Don't worry about us, stay in your lane. You know, and that's what I've always said, I'm not necessarily here to promote trans black you know, undocumented workers.
Falcon Fuhr:I'm here about you know everybody, just stay in your lane. Yeah, accept everybody for who they are. You know we talk in this community, um, it's not just trans or non-binary. We talk about the gays and the lesbians and the bisexuals and the alt lifestyles that we all go into. And it's not just the gays that do this.
Robin:Straight people have those alt lifestyles too um, yes, what they do behind their closed doors with whomever they want to, is also happening all the time right? Oh yeah, the thing is.
Falcon Fuhr:It's like you know they're consenting adults. What they do is their business. What?
Alexis:you do to your body.
Falcon Fuhr:I wouldn't even assisted suicide, if you're, if you got issues, um, but no, I mean but everybody, if everybody stayed in the lane we wouldn't have. The problem is, of course, ignorance, and we're going to keep on saying that we're a lot here. It's also.
Robin:It's also misuse control, because I'm really into control if there's consent, but if there's not consent, then I'm also really into body autonomy, and so there's there's a majority of people that are not into those two things and they misuse those things towards other people, and that has not been addressed in the majority level of things and it does filter down to the rest of us, unfortunately.
Alexis:What I've never understood, and I mean it that way. And I mean I've been out since 1955. So I've seen all sorts of weird things and you know was doing Stay off my OnlyFans.
Robin:You need subscribers too.
Alexis:And you know, what I've never understood is people who want to tell other people how to live their lives right, and I'm like. This is one of the reasons that I'm not terribly religious in the traditional sense back to that, yeah yeah, I mean it really is because they want to tell me how to live my life and I'm like, but y'all don't you know that's very true, but you know the hypocrisy will be there with everybody oh yeah, and you know, my whole thing is that if people would you know.
Alexis:if it's causing some problems for real and I mean honest problems okay let's talk about it and it can probably be handled. But 99.9% of the time it's not causing any real problems. It's just something they made up because they're annoyed.
Falcon Fuhr:I don't want my kids to see gays because it might turn them gay. I'm like I'm sorry, but I come from a family of seven kids and I'm the only gay one.
Robin:And there's a lot of gay people who grew up with a bunch of straight stuff. It didn't make them less gay.
Falcon Fuhr:We were all raised the same, you know.
Chris Sushi :My mother was an artist and um, oh that she looks like she was, like the president of the um american pen women national league of american pen women are you familiar with that organization. She was national, she was texas, she was houston, okay anyways, and she was involved in a lot. She had a lot of gay friends and she had two gay kids.
Robin:Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Chris Sushi :She had a lot of gay friends okay, she designed a mission arc state page. Okay, I mean, she had a lot of gay friends, but she never brought them around us in fear that they would make us gay.
Robin:Right, and they did, and she had.
Chris Sushi :That was from not being there. Well, you know, that was naive. She doesn't get a carrier, because I was born in 61, and my brother, who is also gay, was born in 58.
Alexis:Mm-hmm.
Chris Sushi :So it just kind of— Right, we weren't all around queers, but we had two in our family. Yeah, born this way, wouldn't hope Born this way.
Robin:Some of us are born this way.
Chris Sushi :Some of us just get into it through adventure but you know, one thing that finally made or helped my parents come to terms with it was because my mom said the two of her most loving, caring, generous kids are gay and that is not wrong and God does not make mistakes. So you're saying the other kids are gay and that is not wrong and God does not make mistakes.
Falcon Fuhr:So you're saying the other kids are horrible? Well, they are.
Alexis:We are going to talk about families. We could, yeah.
Robin:Well, I mean, people have grown up in times where they've been told to not catch the gay. They've been told to separate but not equal. They've been told that they've been quarantined to. You know, separate but not equal. They've been told they've been quarantined a lot of a lot of things, and that's why we're talking about these things, that's why we're breaking down the walls and that goes back to the gay plague yes, you know we started making strides in the 70s, and then the gay plague came out well, yes, the 70s here wasn't all that festive no, that's what I'm saying
Chris Sushi :Okay, that was when the high school kids were driving West Timber and beating the shit out of queers.
Robin:Playing Smear the Queer for real. See where I grew up.
Falcon Fuhr:It was a little bit different because they would come through the parking lots and stuff, with the bars screaming faggot and of course when we say stop the car, they stopped, they got their asses kicked.
Chris Sushi :Of course when we say stop the car, they stopped. They got their asses kicked. That was the big thing back then because a lot of the drag queens were implanting heels into people's heads that were rolling the queers and you know, a lot of people don't know this and I wish there was a way that we could make sure it stayed in history. Okay, what stopped that was the Guardian Angels out in New York.
Alexis:Okay.
Robin:Tell us about that.
Chris Sushi :They came to Houston. The Guardian Angels is what changed all the stuff that was going on in New York City in their what's it called the Tram Subway In the subway system. Okay, the guardian angels would walk with a big stick, okay.
Robin:And they all had berets on. Now we're getting religious. They're the angels you wish you had.
Chris Sushi :They had the berets on. They had big sticks. Okay, and they stopped all that in the subway. They had big sticks. Okay, and they stopped all that in the subway. But when they heard what was going on here in Houston and that HPD was doing nothing about it, they came and showed up.
Robin:Okay.
Chris Sushi :And walked Westheimer. Okay, just like that.
Robin:Kind of like the original Queer Patrol. Actually it started.
Chris Sushi :Queer Patrol, okay, that was. They came in, they policed it. They got all the crap that was going on stopped. They built a relationship with HPD Okay. Then they started Queer Patrol, and Queer Patrol, because of the Guardian Angels, were able to have that relationship with HPD Wow, and that's what stopped, okay, I mean, I even have a little brother who used to do that with all his buds before he found out I was gay right.
Robin:Well, thank you for telling us of that history, because it takes someone re-presencing that. You know it really does. And and you know, for those people who don't know, that, there are people who wear t-shirts that say queer patrol. They walk with whistles and sticks, like you're saying. They walk people safely to their cars, they walk the street so people don't jump people and harm people, and that is important.
Robin:You know, when you're living your best insta life, you may not think about all that stuff when you finally go out on in real world in the wild and have to, like, watch your back. You know, um, recently queer patrol was just revamped here in Houston and you know I I feel like we play a little bit of the telephone game in the community on. You know, when cars are getting robbed, when people are getting jumped, when so-and-so didn't make it to the show and we're not really sure why, like, is it a hate crime or is it vandalism? We're just, you know, we're not really sure. I think we keep an open mind and we try to tell people from bar to bar. Still, if you're in the industry, you know what's going on and to look out, but sometimes it's hard to keep up and those are not things that you can always put on Facebook. You may not know what is really happening in the neighborhoods that you go out in until you actually go out you know.
Alexis:And you know, one of the things that I think helped here in Houston too is quite a few of the bar owners. When real trouble was starting to happen, they would just hire people and say, no, not in our area, people right, and you know I mean. There was a.
Chris Sushi :Vote.
Alexis:Mm-hmm.
Chris Sushi :Bar Owners Association of.
Alexis:Texas and not too long ago probably four years, maybe five there started to be people being grabbed on the streets down in Montrose outside of JR's and that area, and the owner, charles, basically hired a whole bunch more security and had them walk everybody to the car and you know, it stopped pretty quick when somebody tried it, with security all over the place, because I don't think he hired nice people. That's good.
Falcon Fuhr:You don't need nice people, you know.
Alexis:And you know, I have a friend that got grabbed and she's a small trans person and physically they just picked her up and we're getting ready to throw her in and some people were coming up from blackhawk and saw him and went running over and so the people in the van dropped her and she left. But that was just. Who knows what was going to happen next.
Chris Sushi :But it wasn't going to be good.
Alexis:And I give the bar owners credit because, well, to begin with, it's for their own benefit, because if it's too dangerous, nobody's going to go out.
Chris Sushi :Right, Well, you know, actually that's what stopped a lot of the bars being raided back in the 70s and 80s is you had to hire two HPD Right. Not just one. Two HPD Every bar hired, two HPD and all the bar rates stopped Interesting.
Robin:Interesting, you know, and I mean.
Falcon Fuhr:Sounds like a payoff to me.
Robin:Well, and maybe it is, and maybe it's a bridge right and I don't know all the history that goes into that, but you were obviously there and it is good to see what these trends are, and I think currently we are one of the few places in the nation that actually has a lesbian bar. Still, we have leather bars, we have gay bars, we have mixed bars, and that's more than some towns even have.
Alexis:And we have a whole lot of bars that don't care.
Chris Sushi :Right. And that's the thing. That's the difference between today and back then.
Alexis:Exactly.
Chris Sushi :Where you know.
Alexis:I mean, I just don't have any trouble going anyplace. I want to go bar or restaurant wise, so I don't need a gay restaurant or a gay bar.
Falcon Fuhr:That's true, but it's also hurting our gay bars.
Chris Sushi :It is, yeah, it's true.
Falcon Fuhr:Because, you know, acceptance obviously means that you don't have to go into that bar where you were being protected by those walls. What happened in those bars stayed in those bars and so, yeah, that created a wall, a fortress in a way.
Alexis:Exactly, but I'd rather have it open up where we can be ourselves and just be out, than say, oh gosh, you know, I've got to be very careful about only going here, here, here intimate gay bar and on the small stage with a weird light and low budget and the seediness of it all on on that type of stage, yeah, and then you're, you're, you're actually in the big stage called life.
Robin:What would you two want for the world from here? In this moment? You know not everything is bar centered what would you like to see for the world and community that you've worked so hard for? As things are taken back a bit, what do you think there is to do at this point?
Chris Sushi :One continue to raise money for the organization, the different groups that need the money, especially to go through what we're getting ready to go through. Okay, with the health insurance and all that other stuff that's going on. Be more loving towards each other. Yeah, because we got to stick it out together. You know what did, jose?
Alexis:said One.
Falcon Fuhr:Gosh, you throw me on the spot again.
Chris Sushi :I wish.
Robin:I could remember. It's a famous quote.
Chris Sushi :Okay, okay, we'll think about it, divided we no.
Falcon Fuhr:I'll get it. No worries, we'll get it Divided. We, I'll get it.
Robin:No worries, we'll get it Divided, we fall united, we stand United we stand divided, we fall.
Falcon Fuhr:It's a little bit close to that, but yeah.
Chris Sushi :It's got a little bit more verbiage to it that kind of makes you go.
Robin:Okay we'll look it up.
Alexis:Let's see, I think, the original quote around those things United.
Falcon Fuhr:We stand divided. They catch us one by one.
Chris Sushi :Okay, yeah, that's a good sentiment, yeah, you know, and we have to be united.
Alexis:And I think in the revolution, I think the statement was we all hang together or we shall surely hang separately.
Chris Sushi :Well, that's, true, okay.
Alexis:You know especially all is one.
Robin:Wait, you mean that embrace wasn't original? Just kidding the shade.
Chris Sushi :You know, because some people may feel that what's going on with the trans community doesn't affect you yourself, because you're not trans.
Alexis:I'm not trans.
Chris Sushi :I'm sorry, but I have been, are you sure, sir Kicked?
Robin:out of bathrooms.
Chris Sushi :I have been escorted out of bathrooms.
Falcon Fuhr:I've had six people, women's or men's.
Chris Sushi :Standing at the Men.
Falcon Fuhr:I'm in the women's restroom. You're in the women's, yeah, but men come in to get me.
Chris Sushi :I've had four people outside the bathroom door when I came out and I always try to use my most feminine. Excuse me when I walk past them so they won't grab me or you know right. But I think until this all gets healed is going to be more in John Q Public, because the restrooms are such a big thing right now.
Robin:Yeah.
Chris Sushi :John Q Public doesn't realize on how real trans people look today. Right, right, some of them look way better than your standard. They look just, I mean there's no difference. So who's getting harassed? Going into the bathrooms are people like me. They're UPS drivers.
Robin:Yeah.
Chris Sushi :Are people like?
Robin:me. Exactly, you know people who haven't transitioned and people who are not taking supportive hormones and people who look maybe a little too close like their dad. You know and you know. But the problem ultimately is people don't understand that old boogeyman marketing when they were trying to keep blacks out of the bathroom is literally the same marketing. They didn't even change it. They're so lazy. They're literally the same marketing images that they used to say trans people were in the bathroom.
Robin:Yeah were in the bathroom and people are not hearing like experiences like yours and they're not remembering experiences like yours because you're not a majority experience. But you know you were never welcome in the bathroom either, even though you qualified. You know and, and there's been a lot of harm where there's no recourse to talk about it, there's no backup to talk about it, and and that that is important. You know we're we say we want to protect the women and the children in the bathroom, but it's only. They want to protect some women and some children, if any, and they also want to hide their reputation and what they've done in the bathrooms, because there are some trans people but there are some there's like.
Robin:Okay, like, if you want to look at facts, let's look at how many politicians have had crime sheets in men's restaurants yeah and hey, while we're looking at it, I want to see. I want to see it like, I want to bring it into the light, like let's look at the nitty-gritty on how many trans people are out there causing this many problems. I want to see it.
Falcon Fuhr:Here's the thing when you're looking at numbers once again, when you figure that everything is going to be skewed where yeah, if pedophilia accounts for 1% of America, then you can plan that 1.5% of trans, non-binaries 1% is probably going to cause pedophilia. You know what I'm saying. It's across the board. There's not a. I'm not saying same thing with gays, same thing with blacks, same thing with straights, same thing with gay, same thing with black, same thing with straights. What I'm saying is, if you're looking at any demographic of numbers and you're saying that 1% is pedophiles, that's going to be any group.
Robin:I'm not saying trans-specific, so there's going to be problems in all different demographics at some point is what I'm hearing you saying. Yes.
Falcon Fuhr:When you throw a bath into it.
Robin:It throws it off.
Falcon Fuhr:So when you talk, about.
Chris Sushi :Isn't it proof that most child or sexual predators are straight?
Alexis:men? Absolutely yes, and that's what I was about to say. The percentage of transgender people who have been shown to be pedophiles is so low you can barely even find it, but once again you're talking about a small percentage of people. No, no, no, I'm talking about the percentage of the trans community. It's way lower than the straight male, but and I think there's a lot of reasons for that because they get their frustrations out otherwise and they're going to be nervous, I mean.
Falcon Fuhr:But when you're talking about the bathroom bills and I just once again my analytical brain is going crazy with this, because I'm like why are we arguing about real estate? Why can't you just create a massive bathroom with cubicles Florida ceiling cubicles totally enclosed, everybody goes in, everybody goes out. Cubicles, florida City cubicles totally enclosed, everybody goes in, Everybody goes out. Because if somebody's going to get attacked in a bathroom male, female, child, whatever it is it's going to happen.
Falcon Fuhr:It doesn't matter if there's a person with a criminal mind outside that door. It's going to happen.
Alexis:So the real estate doesn't really mean a damn thing to my mind. When the whole hero argument was going, we did a lot of research and in the state of texas there's no recorded time that a child has been attacked in a bathroom by anyone right, let alone trans people, and you know it just hasn't happened, and one of the big questions was because they were talking about child children of five and six years old.
Alexis:It's like our view is what the heck are they doing in a bathroom alone? Anyway, I mean a public, a public restroom is not where you want to send a little kid, right and you know, back in our day, we did, we did yeah, I mean I went to the bathroom that young but it goes back to what chris was saying even further.
Robin:so if we start, just not the real estate, because that does it off, but that is why there's a lot of money involved, because it's called public accommodations and people also in public accommodations is, restrooms are included, but that's not the whole thing about public accommodations. But what Chris is saying is where I think we need is done in the bathroom. Is there support, recourse and accountability for that? Yes, in the city of Houston, if somebody goes in and causes a disturbance, there are repercussions for that.
Alexis:Houston has had a bathroom law since before 1963. And it's fine to be really blunt. Women are supposed to go to the women's and men's supposed to go to the men's it says you know, women should use women, men should use men's, and it's only an offense if you entered the bathroom of the opposite person to cause a disturbance.
Robin:To cause a disturbance. So if you and I go to a bathroom and we have a pick of one long ass woman's line versus one short, no, line of men's Every sports arena. Yeah, and we dash into the men's restroom to use your restroom, that's not a problem. If we went in there to cause a problem, that is a problem.
Alexis:And if you bang on doors, going down through there and do something?
Robin:What Chris is saying, and this is a lived experience, and Falcon, if this is your experience, or Alexis, if this is your experience. But what Chris is saying is she is going into the women's restroom, her ID says woman and it is the people in the restroom that is causing the disturbance to her, such that she is having to be pulled out and prosecuted from the bathroom just by going to the right bathroom and see with TFA.
Alexis:One of the things we decided to do was become more active on things. This was right before we got shut down for the pandemic. But one of the things that did come out is there was a person here in Houston that went to the public library a trans person, oh okay Went into the women's restroom and the librarian had security remove her.
Chris Sushi :Was that Kate?
Alexis:No, okay, and she was from Oklahoma. This person was just in town as a guest, and so then HPD came and arrested her, charged her with a law that does not exist. It literally does not exist anywhere in Texas. I mean, they had a number and everything else. Well, we sort of got that thrown out and basically we had to convince her to come back to Texas so they could expunge everything, because they couldn't expunge it without her physically there in court. And so what ended up happening after all of this is the HPD officer was sent to be retrained.
Chris Sushi :Oh, that's a good thing.
Alexis:The librarian was fired. It was right at the end of Anissa's term.
Robin:Oh.
Alexis:Our gay mayor's term.
Robin:She was an abomination and this was right when they were trying to put in a lot of anti-bathroom bills and a lot of the towns and cities that were that still didn't have a safety ordinance, right. But and there are there were people trying to make sure that houston, the towns and cities that still didn't have a safety ordinance, and there were people trying to make sure that Houston the most diversity in the world continued to not have a safety ordinance.
Alexis:But what also happened is the security guard that went in and literally pulled this person out was arrested. He should have been.
Chris Sushi :And I mean I will grant you we were pushing it very heavily and using person out was arrested.
Alexis:He should have been For going into the women's section and I mean, I will grant you, we were pushing it very heavily and using as much political clout as we could get, but it went through the courts. You know, everything happened the way it should have. So I'm like, okay, the law is a good law. And you know, and does it say, yeah, you should use the one that's labeled Sure. So use it If you don't want to. Just don't cause a disturbance.
Robin:And I mean if you go in and do your thing and wash your hands. That's not a disturbance in anybody's mind and there are families that are gender blended or heteronormative or single parents that do have kids, that have to bend or use the same laws. So if you are just a single mom who has a little boy and you have to keep your little boy with you, that little boy is going to go into the women's restroom most of the time. If you are a single father who has a little girl, it gets a little harder for him to be taking the little girl into the men's restroom I've seen it happen it happens.
Robin:But if we're just talking about like real plumbing, there are less toilets and more urinals, and so the dad often has to get a woman to have the girl, the little girl, assisted into the women's restroom. So you're now trusting a stranger. These family restrooms have helped a lot.
Alexis:I've also seen the dads take them in.
Robin:Yeah, don't totally and but, but it's just. It's not just a trans issue or a androgynous issue, like there are real families, or when you actually talk to them, them, like you know, this really hasn't even been easy as a parent, you know, and I don't want my kid unattended, not because of the fear, but because they might be goofing off in there or you want to get to the bathroom and you want to get out.
Alexis:You know, and it's not real like easy. The other thing is that, you know I mean I had people that worked for me in France for a good while and the restrooms in France that we normally use there was a restroom Period. There were urinals on one side, female urinals on the other side and a whole bunch of stalls down the middle.
Robin:Yeah, sorry there were female urinals available. Yeah Right, we don't have a lot of that in America.
Alexis:We don't have any of it.
Falcon Fuhr:I've ever seen Not at all, but I mean you go to Amsterdam and those cities and men urinate on a pole right at the corner? Yeah, because it's very much just a small little, almost a phone booth size urinal for men on almost every corner and that took me a long time to get used to.
Alexis:Yeah, and it gets them arrested in Houston.
Falcon Fuhr:As a gay man, it's like I can't work this. This is not my normal tea room, but yeah, just the idea. So, like you know, speaking of a guy bringing in his children, his daughters, and these daughters were, like you know, 12 and 13. And there's, like you know, two guys at the urinals and there's no dividers between the urinals.
Falcon Fuhr:So they could see everything. And I'm like, okay, am I comfortable with this, right? Right, but you know, I I do agree, like I said. Going back to real estate, sure, and what you said about france, when you, you know, when you're talking about family restrooms, if you create the whole system in one room, there's going to be constantly people there, right?
Robin:I don't think anything could really happen the way you know right, nobody says their kids in anymore on the company, thankfully now there are a lot of people you know a couple years past the bathroom rhetoric that are saying like I actually wouldn't mind going to the bathroom with a trans person. I'd rather not go to the bathroom with the politicians who keep driving this Like there are not real issues. And there are buddies that are like I'd be more than happy to go in with your kid if you need me to or not. But I mean, not all facilities can change, not all policies can be altered.
Falcon Fuhr:I'm just, you know, not uncomfortable, but I'm just I don't know where I want to go with this. That's politically correct. I got three people dead staring at me now.
Alexis:Well, you know, what I was about to say is one of the other things that a lot of people miss is let's say that you know you have a small child and you need someone to take them into the restroom for you. If you're the person who says, sure, I'll take your kid to the restroom, this is a bunch of liability you just picked up.
Chris Sushi :Oh yeah, there is.
Alexis:Because, you know this person may be a little bit touchy about something.
Robin:And you know, the kid says well, you know the kids. Uh, well, you know this happened, uh, you know whether it happened or not.
Alexis:Yeah, you know, it's almost like you have to have the person taking the man in a witness or something oh yeah, there'd be no way.
Falcon Fuhr:What I would do if a woman had to take a little boy into the men's room per se or something like that. I'd be able to say hold up, let me clear the bathroom for you.
Robin:Yeah, you know, I have a boy and a girl niece and nephew from my sister in my family and it was so easy to take the boy in with the girls up until a certain age. But the boy was very introverted, very shy. Like kids are listening to these conversations all the time, they're also scared all the time. And so we were at a restaurant and my mom, my sister and my niece go, you know, into the bathroom and I could just see my nephew going slower and slower and hunching, you know, and I said I'll go with you and my mom said don't you dare. You know we're, we're in a certain amount or a certain area where this would not be accepted, you know type of tone. And I'm like you know, this kid is scared, he just has to pee and I go in.
Robin:You know there's a you know two year in a stall. I said, do what you got to do. And I kept a foot open on the door. You know I wasn't getting into anyone's privacy, I was just like I will be here. And my mom was like you know, don't cause a scene, you know. And it's like, okay, no, you go, do what you need to do and we're keeping an eye on this kid. Like you know, we need to all grow up to a maturity level and start calling out the facts of what is really just happening in there, because otherwise we don't know the history. We're not being taught that in schools. We fall for the rhetoric, we get concerned, we get fearful. But right, if the community can actually just pull together in the moment for what needs to be done. It's a basic human need.
Chris Sushi :Do you know the solution? It would be if we made public restrooms a public restroom Uno. Yeah, because everybody. There would be so many people in that restroom you couldn't if you wanted to approach somebody.
Alexis:That's what I'm saying, that makes sense.
Chris Sushi :You're just better off having everybody go to the same restroom.
Robin:One restroom, everybody's safe. A lot of people there got your back well, a lot of Americans made it segregated because of the policing.
Robin:But you're not wrong. There are conferences that have that, and the Houston Creating Change Conference with the National Task Force had that at the Hilton and it was a bunch of LGBT people and allies and everything. And you know what they're doing in there. They're talking about the next conference that they're about to walk in. They're talking about how's your wife. They're talking about you know. Uh, hey, did you forget to wash your hands? Do you need extra soap?
Robin:Like you know, because when you're saying, if we made it a public restroom, I'm thinking would it be cleaner?
Falcon Fuhr:On the men's side, well oh.
Robin:Just don't look at the floor. There you go. I think we've exhausted this topic.
Falcon Fuhr:Because you know the gays, we'll keep our side clean.
Chris Sushi :That hasn't been my experience in numbers.
Falcon Fuhr:Right, I've always, you know when I worked retail and stuff and had to clean both bathrooms.
Alexis:Women's were always nasty well, I mean, yeah, that too, because they're squatting and missing.
Falcon Fuhr:But oh, they miss a lot.
Robin:They miss a lot I think the hubbers ruin it for a lot of people. Yes, hubbers are genderless.
Falcon Fuhr:They always send me in because they're like, you're an EMT, you're used to this crap. I'm like not the Huggers, yes.
Robin:The cleaner the better and the more Public access to bathrooms the better. I mean, I hope that Houston doesn't turn Into a place like New York where you can't find Public bathrooms, like we're getting More density and less access. And that's really hard for people In general when I go into places and they're like oh we, more density and less access and that's really hard for people in general.
Falcon Fuhr:Well, the nice thing is, like when I go into places and they're like, oh, we don't have a public bathroom. Like you know, there's a starbucks right around the corner here. We don't have a public bathroom. Oh yes, you do, um ada compliant. They're going what I said. I have a disability. Okay, go ahead, use ours, walk out. What was your disability? I'm diabetic, but but it is a legal disability. Yeah, yeah, and not only it affects your bladder.
Robin:Yeah, your kidneys Basic human functions. If we were just kinder, the world would be a better place.
Falcon Fuhr:There's times where, when I gotta go, I gotta go. It's like I'm sorry.
Robin:It's either that or you're gonna have a very weird frappuccino in about five minutes. Well, thank you for coming today, both of you and spending time here with us, and we welcome you back. We can talk about other things.
Alexis:And I have a question for you. That's not what you think of me Cooking. Well, that's next. Oh, Not right now. So what?
Falcon Fuhr:would you like us to push in the podcast to sort of advertise Push?
Alexis:for advertise Advertise. Would you like us to talk about what I mean?
Falcon Fuhr:because we're sponges, so we can drop. We're pretty much. You throw the subject matter at us and we have an opinion. We can just have you back for different opinions.
Robin:Yeah, that's great.
Falcon Fuhr:You know, I think we touched on a lot.
Chris Sushi :It was Sushi that did the religion, by the way, so everybody knows.
Falcon Fuhr:That was not me, you know.
Robin:We might leave the whole Catholic thing out, Like I don't know.
Alexis:You know we all backed up, waiting for the lightning bolts.
Falcon Fuhr:Next time? What do you want to talk about? The next episode of Falcon and Sushi, oh?
Chris Sushi :What can we do to make a change?
Alexis:Can we do what?
Robin:She wants to highlight what can we do to make a change.
Alexis:Oh, that would be cool. I'm good at that.
Robin:That's the tone of it. Yeah, okay.
Falcon Fuhr:And for me it would be. You know, how do we go back and show people our history?
Chris Sushi :Because I think we touched on a lot of stuff
Robin:here today. Yeah, no, that's great.
Falcon Fuhr:Yeah, people, that's great.
Chris Sushi :Yeah.
Falcon Fuhr:People hate that I bring up history all the time, really, even within the court Me too, yeah, yeah.
Chris Sushi :But one thing that I would like to bring up for this that if people watch yes, there's a lot of negative going on out in the world today, but if you watch, there's little messages in commercials, in programs, in all that say we have your back, yep, and we just need to watch for those messages. You're seeing more and more trans in commercials. You're seeing more and more gay or lesbian couples in commercials. You, you know, every program has their own queer, you know. So we're still being watched, we're still.
Falcon Fuhr:We have our backing, we have our backs I I think one of the things I've been telling a lot of my friends, you know, since January. I said look, I'm 60 years old, turning 60 years old this year, and I can honestly say we have ups, we have downs, we will get through it, we will always get through it, because nothing in my life has changed so dramatic that I want to move away. First of all, for anybody who wants to move away, you're, you're just right away from the fight and it's a weird too yeah, it's like we don't need you to run away, we need you to fight.
Falcon Fuhr:So, um, that's one of my biggest issues.
Falcon Fuhr:That I see happening nowadays is that people want to fight online with each other but they want to try to create this social fight and I'm like no, you got to go back to the old days of Martin Luther King and get the numbers up there and the Million man March and all these March on Washington and the AIDS quilt being thrown all across the mall in Washington DC and say, in your face, reagan, so we need to go back being thrown all across the mall in Washington DC and say, in your face, reagan, so we need to go back to getting things in people's faces, because what's happening right now and a good example that I'd like to put out there and I know some people might get upset with this, but Black Lives.
Alexis:Matter.
Falcon Fuhr:Every time we have a tragedy within the black community, some riot starts, some protest starts, then it's gone within a week. Yep Never stays, so what politicians are doing now is just wait.
Robin:It'll disappear. There's no lasting effect.
Falcon Fuhr:There's no lasting effect we need to go back to having for all of us blacks, browns, asians, everybody who's been marginalized Muslims you know we're always talking about. You know this group is bad, that group is bad. This group is bad. It's not the groups, it's a small number of people within those groups and we all have those people within our groups. So it's always a small number of people that make the rest of the group look bad. So don't you know what we go see in the next four years and personally, I think, in midterms? God, I think things are going to change because people are realizing the BS that's being thrown down the pipe.
Alexis:I hope they are.
Chris Sushi :It looks like people may be starting to wake up.
Falcon Fuhr:Oh, even when Marjorie Taylor Greene goes online and says we're in deep shit.
Robin:Well, and I think that that's important because some of the unraveling in the Black Lives Matter movements is the lasting power to the next election. The lasting power with all the dumpster fires while managing your life is specifically hard. It is the next election, the lasting power, with all the dumpster fires while managing your life. It is specifically hard. So you can have that illustration of oh, we're all in a choir and we breathe when we need to while we're all singing, and that's cute on a meme but what it really takes to put in the time and the hours and to stay attuned is hard when everyone is socially still segregated, with isolation after the pandemic.
Robin:It's hard when people feel like they voting doesn't matter. You know when they, when they have these epiphanies and they're not actually showing up at the polls or showing up to volunteer or showing up to do the work, I think some of those messages and you know get dropped and then some of the stinking thinking that gets in people's minds is what does it really matter? Or does it really matter or can can I make a difference? And so we want to remind people differences have been made, but it takes a long time. It's going to take a long time.
Falcon Fuhr:It's going to take numbers of people getting out there and doing it and it's going to take people being consistent and it's not going to happen the way you know. Trying to send in a letter writing campaign to your congressman? Well, guess what? When I get my mail every day, I know it's junk mail.
Alexis:Most of it goes in the trash. Everything comes through email that I need as far as my bill, so I don't look at my mail. But here's the big thing. I I think we have to do it smarter. We, we do what I consider stupid things constantly.
Robin:What would smarter look like at this point?
Alexis:smarter would look like. Figure out where some pressure points are, figure out how you can move that forward. Uh, with the Texas legislature, which is currently, you know, not a great group of people, but they aren't too bad. We have a group of people that represent us here in Houston who are okay, and we have some really excellent people and we basically we, being TFA in this case went to great extents to court those people. Make sure they understood our position. We support them in a whole lot of ways that people have no clue, because we need them to do things like add things into laws that make them not bad for us or not as bad for us, and they do that and we've gotten a lot of that done.
Alexis:For instance, this year in the legislature, I think there were like 180 anti-trans bills that were introduced and it doesn't look like any of them are going to pass. Now Abbott may call a special session just to take them all on, who knows? But I mean it's the type thing that we also have to educate the populace, because when something you know, the news media says oh well, this trans bill was introduced to make it illegal to be transgender. It was introduced, by the way. That's so far from being a law that it's ridiculous. I mean, you know it's probably, unless the governor is pushing it, it's going to take three years before it even gets a hearing anyplace.
Alexis:And so the idea is that our people go in and start working on it. So you know, instead of making a huge deal and essentially causing them problems with the rest of the voters in their district, what we try to do is make sure that we have enough voters that are going to vote for them to keep them in and that we support them heavily. And I think that's the big thing. I mean, I was doing activism-type stuff before the Million man March came up and before the first Civil Rights March and all like that, and I was like, oh, this will fix something. It fixed nothing, it made no difference, it was at all positive.
Chris Sushi :All it did was cause a lot of litter in Washington DC. I'm okay with that. It's kind of sad, but it's also kind of true. I remember when we made that march on Austin 30, 40 years ago, I was going to say it doesn't matter when there have been a bunch. My mom said if y'all took all that money you spent to do that march and donated it, could you imagine?
Alexis:Well, I got a better one for you. You take all that stuff, you throw it into a pack so that you can do what you want with it, and you go target the people that are doing the negative bills. I would love to be able to target the person who introduced the bill that said it's a felony to be transgender, and that's what it says. I mean, there's no question about it. I would love to say, okay, you're elected every two years. Guess what? Hi, it's us. And that person we're going, yeah, you know, and that person we're going to support really heavily, yeah, and we're going to talk to everybody in your community that we can probably possibly talk to about how horrible you are, how great they are, and usually you find that trans people people like when they meet them yeah I mean, you don't get this hate thing or anything else you get generally, they like you.
Falcon Fuhr:Well, the amazing part is, it's how many people like Chris said earlier, how many people are standing right beside you that you don't even realize are trans.
Robin:Oh, absolutely, because they've assimilated in or have someone in their family or actually cares, but is afraid to say it because they don't want to lose a friend or they don't want to. They're they're not the ally that can pick a fight. You know, I mean, you are shutting out your friends without even knowing it. You know, and and some of it is avoiding the conversation and being on the public band, uh, bandwagon, and you know, one of the things that we were looking at with some of the trans rhetoric was is who's actually suing the heritage foundation? You know who is actually going for the people that are causing all this hate policy?
Alexis:And you know, basically they've made statements that are defamation of character toward me, toward other people, the people that put up the billboards here in Houston that said all trans are pedophiles which they did put those up. Why didn't we sue them? Now you know that goes to me too, right, but it's like I'm sorry. What we have to do is start to make it hurt Correct. And there was a time a while back when I was an assistant secretary of commerce and was doing stuff with the first Bush administration, I guess it was and was asked to lobby Congress on some stuff they were doing. Well, when you're lobbying Congress, there's a way you can ask for five minutes for personal stuff. And so I did that and you know, discuss the whole trans situation and all that type thing, and most of the congressmen are happy to give you five minutes if you've been in there on behalf of the White House.
Alexis:And it was interesting because there was something coming up. I don't remember what it is now, but there was a law coming up and the big push was they wanted to eliminate the trans people and give everybody else equality, which they did. And you know everybody was all happy about the law. And during this whole thing, I ran across a bunch of people that said well, you know, I'm not going to out myself, but I will never vote against something that's a trans issue, if I know that's what it is and I will always vote in favor of it, but I'm not going to out myself. Now, you know, there were a bunch of people. Well, it turns out, this particular law, which was really good for the gay community, was really good for everybody except the trans community, and a lot of gay people were saying, well, we'll come back and pick you up later. We've had that a bunch of times.
Robin:The whole political experience. Yeah, the.
Alexis:HRC was pushing for it, and so I made the phone calls to these people that weren't going to out themselves and I'm like I need you to vote against it because we need to kill this law. And they did, and everyone's like it's so horrible. I'm like, no, you kept us out. You would have had the law if you'd put us in. I can tell you who voted for it and who didn't, and you would have had 14 more votes. Yeah, and they're like well, we only needed six. I'm like, exactly, so don't underestimate us. And it's that sort of thing that I think we need to do more of where it hurts, where it really hurts, and HRC started being a little bit nicer.
Robin:And also, what I hear in that story is where we need to repair our history going forward is we don't abandon people, different parts in our community. You know. I mean we need to hold all the community accountable for what they call political expedience. And they say, well, we need these rights, so we're dumping you. Yeah, you know that needs to stop because we do need to stay together. Ultimately they will come for all of us and we have had a history of the dumping and having trans people, especially with the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance. You know, taking the punch, that ordinance would have supported vets, would have supported pregnant women, would have supported race to the city that were reported for people not, you know, following a law and policy that you would need an equal rights ordinance for was not for gays, was not for lesbians, was not for trans people. There's not enough of those people in our city. It was for race, but they couldn't run a hate campaign against that because then they'd never get voted in.
Falcon Fuhr:Right.
Robin:So you know we do need to stick together.
Alexis:And when it came up again, our position was we got beat up really bad last time and you all just sort of threw us, you know, under the bed or under the truck or bus or whatever it was, but you weren't there to help at all.
Robin:We had to basically take care of our people, and everybody else is like not us and as it it was in 2015, I think it was right when gay marriage was made legal, like in around october, and then it was on the ballot. The the bathroom bill was on the ballot.
Alexis:That following november and our city council and see the problem is we even say it's a bathroom bill.
Robin:It was, there's no worry about bathrooms right, there's no word about, but that's how people would remember it. The Houston Equal Rights Ordinance ended up being the bathroom rhetoric bill and it protected a lot of public accommodations and our gay mayor thought it would pass on the ballot. A lot of the people on the council thought it would pass on the ballot and the council adopted it.
Alexis:And then there was a ballot initiative to recall it. The council adopted it, and then there was a ballot initiative, to recall it.
Robin:And if people had been paying attention in our community and out of our community and not fell for the rhetoric, they could have gotten gay married and then went to work and put their wedding pictures on their desk and not been fired for it.
Chris Sushi :But there's no recourse.
Robin:if you do that and they didn't know that, you have to follow it all the way through.
Falcon Fuhr:I think the EEOC has a recourse against discrimination?
Alexis:Nope, they didn't. Eeoc's recourse is that you can't be fired for being gay, for being gay but you can be fired for displaying that you're gay. That was the ridiculous thing that I found in the Obama administration. They didn't change that, see. The other thing about it is it really disturbs me. You know, we've had a couple of administrations that are supposedly very friendly to us. They didn't pass a single law on our behalf. What they did were executive orders. Those are worthless. Right, that's a four-year thing, and then it's gone At the federal level.
Alexis:Yeah, at the federal level. Now why didn't they do the laws? Because they had other things they wanted to do, and so it's like I don't give them a whole lot of credit because these can all be reversed and have been now and that's what's sort of getting us. So that's why I say we've got to be a little bit smarter and a little bit pushier about what we're doing. But I think, you know, we're in better shape than we were. I mean, I look at it sort of the macro view and it's like let me go back 20 years, 30 years, 40 years. Are we in better shape? Yeah, yes.
Alexis:Now are we in good shape? Not necessarily Are we in good shape. Not necessarily Is it where we want it.
Falcon Fuhr:That goes back to my civil rights argument. You know you talk about. You know African-Americans having their rights for the last 60 years, supposedly, but yet they're still being underpaid.
Alexis:There's still. There's political redlining still going on to where they're forced into certain communities. Yeah, the Democratic Party, you know, had this convention in Milwaukee, I think it was, and it's a totally red-lined city and I'm like, why are you taking your money to Milwaukee? Well, it's because your party chair, assistant chair, family ran all of the concessions there and I'm like so don't give me the bit of guys the Democrats are perfect, because they aren't.
Falcon Fuhr:But what I'm getting back to is that 60 years later, they still have issues.
Alexis:Yeah so, but see, one of the things I think we do wrong and I don't think I've said this terribly loudly publicly we do it backwards, we do go backwards.
Alexis:No no, no, no. You missed what I said. We do it backwards. We're talking civil rights, you know. We go in and we say you can't discriminate because of this or this or this or this or this. Why do we do that? My view is you can't discriminate because of anything except and name the reasons you know. For instance, with real estate, you can discriminate if they don't have the money Right.
Robin:But everything else, sorry, you can't for anybody. I think that's really important because you know, when all of this rhetoric was coming about, I had a friend that is white, cis, heteronormative, followed all the ally work and all this other stuff and he's like you know who I am, you know my heart. Can I ask you a question? I said absolutely. He says well, who do I get to discriminate against? And I really had no idea what to say because I've never considered discriminating against other people, but there are people who want to do that.
Falcon Fuhr:So if that's the case, then discriminate against hate, discriminate against injustice, discriminate like, flip it around in your head, like you know I don't wake up in the morning asking myself that so I'm not sure that's what I said to a friend of mine the other day he posted on facebook that, um, he's going to remove anybody who is participating in the cancel culture. I said so you're canceling the cancel culture?
Alexis:I said so yeah, that doesn't make sense. So that's what happens you know you start just became one of them, yeah.
Robin:So if we were, who do we get to discriminate against Real estate injustice? Or like, what's the exceptions? If we were to take on your approach, Alexis?
Falcon Fuhr:Well, even in real estate, I work in mortgages.
Alexis:I mean we discriminate all the time. I mean, if the water is too hot, you don't jump in it. That's a discrimination.
Robin:Okay.
Alexis:You know, if there's some reason, then you don't do it. But the key is it needs to be a real reason, not this made-up thing. And you know, like with real estate, one of the things is, if you say we're going to take a law and you need to list all the reasons you might want to decide not to sell to this person or a realtor, not to serve this person, they will give you a list and then you filter their list and it ends up being a much shorter list than we currently have, because there are. I mean, like if the person can't, you know, get a loan and they don't have the money, and they don't have the, okay, sure.
Falcon Fuhr:Then you don't sell them a house. That's the approval process. That's not discrimination.
Alexis:Well, but a lot of the approval process is discrimination, with trans especially.
Falcon Fuhr:it's like oh, they're trans people. What do you?
Alexis:define that.
Falcon Fuhr:As far as.
Alexis:Okay, so right after Hero, one of the things that happened was a bunch of trans people lost their housing because they were trans and they were out because of hero and so we had to take care of. Still, the people find that when they go in to certain places not every place if they're trans suddenly there's all sorts of other requirements, there's all sorts of problems and you know whether they have the money or not well, because public accommodations beyond the bathrooms also includes housing. Well, no, actually they don't.
Robin:No, okay.
Alexis:I mean one of the problems that we have. I mean, you know, essentially the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance was worthless until we got a state or federal law because it just didn't have anything close to the teeth it would have to have. Companies would just build in the $200 maximum fine as a cost of doing business. You know which was a real problem. But from the state standpoint, you know there's several things that you can probably get through. But one of the things is there's no place in the state of Texas laws that define public accommodations, and that's the complicated one. And you know, the strong suggestion from the Republican side when I was talking to them was that we find a law that you know nobody cares about, that we put the definition of public accommodations in so that doesn't end up being the main thrust of the argument over whether or not we allow people to discriminate based for public accommodations, and that it's being done.
Falcon Fuhr:So you are talking about more, not about getting a loan, more about public housing.
Alexis:Housing. You know you can't buy a house because of this lot. You know it's a deed restriction type thing or something.
Falcon Fuhr:So they can put that in your deeds. I've never heard of it.
Alexis:I've never seen it in the deeds, but they've done it with everything else like that I've worked in the mortgage for 45 years, so I've never heard of it.
Falcon Fuhr:We just care about the money. Could you pay the loan? Sure? Okay, here's your loan. But she worked with me too.
Alexis:But see, that makes it really simple, and that's what I'm saying. That's what we ought to be doing, instead of trying to go through and say, well, you can't discriminate because they're gay or because they're this, or because it's like, sorry, there's no discrimination.
Falcon Fuhr:Except the only thing that we really had issues with and I'll be quite honest with it is how you hold title, because a lot of it has to do with are you a married man, are you a single woman? So if you are trying to do a gender that's different from your driver's license, yeah, that's where you're going to run into problems, because they're going to put in the title work what your gender is on your driver's license, because that's all we can go by, even though how you self-identify is completely different. So that's not an issue, because you know I was operations manager and, trust me, I've never. You know, we do. You know my husband and I are on the same title work together as husbands.
Alexis:Well, I'll guarantee you that in Dallas they did that when I was living in Dallas.
Falcon Fuhr:Probably a long time ago, right yeah?
Alexis:Okay, Well, I mean it was before the 70s.
Falcon Fuhr:Yeah, yeah, laws have changed since then.
Alexis:And you know, and it's sort of like guess what we're headed back that way.
Falcon Fuhr:Yeah, the whole Dodd-Frank laws that came through the whole trade process, where there is now a lot of laws that prevent discrimination within the lending process. Now, public housing, I don't know.
Alexis:Yeah, those are federal, though in general, the loans we do, yeah, housing lending. It could be. I was going to say the banking laws.
Falcon Fuhr:Our government loans are already VA and FHA loans, okay, the loans we do in housing lending it could be, depending on who you sell to.
Alexis:I was going to say the banking laws, our government loans are already VA and FHA loans.
Falcon Fuhr:Okay yeah, so those are federal, so everything that's conventional or non-portfolio loans which is held by the bank. They can invest it, but trust me, it's all about the money. They don't care about title work.
Alexis:It's all about the money and I personally like that. Yeah, title work, and I personally like that. I mean, that's what I like about the oil companies. They don't discriminate as much as other people, except Exxon, because their thing is do you make me money? Okay, I don't care about anything else. Right, right, you don't even have to be nice, you don't make me money.
Falcon Fuhr:I still don't care about anything else. You know what I wish, that's how everybody would be yeah. If you know what I wish, that's how everybody would be yeah. If the Republicans already care about greed, gays know how to make money, because we don't have kids as much. We know how to party. We know how to do trips. Trust me, we can make you money.
Chris Sushi :You know what? I've said this for years and I wish we could do it, if we all just walked off our jobs for one day.
Falcon Fuhr:Oh yeah.
Chris Sushi :Just for one day, this whole country would go.
Alexis:There's that many of them.
Chris Sushi :When you look at, the hospitals would shut down. The airports would shut down. The hotels would shut down. The restaurants would shut down. Yes, the airports would shut down. The hotels would shut down. The restaurants would shut down. Everything would shut down.
Falcon Fuhr:Beauty powders.
Chris Sushi :Beauty powders, but everything would just completely come to a halt.
Falcon Fuhr:Yeah, I don't know if it would come to a halt, but it would be very, very difficult.
Alexis:I'll tell you that much, and the problem is we aren't organized enough to do that. That's true. A halt yeah, I don't know if it would come to a halt, but it would be very very difficult to tell you that much.
Chris Sushi :Well, and the problem is we aren't organized enough to do that. Oh, that's true. I mean, we're the most unorganized group. That could be, but that could also be.
Robin:No, I'm just kidding, but you know.
Chris Sushi :I think it would make a whole lot bigger impact than what you think it would.
Robin:And what would be the intent in that for you Like, okay so For them to go oh maybe we shouldn't fuck with them.
Falcon Fuhr:Here's the thing Republicans would just accept the gays, they would not have any issues getting re-elected. Their whole platform of pushing us away is the reason why. Because it's us, our family members, that support us. A lot of them, people who are gay-friendly they are sick of the bullshit of hearing hate, hate, hate. And that's only their soundbites nowadays is hate, hate, hate. And that's only their soundbites nowadays is hate, hate, hate. And every time you know we talk about different things, they create drama, sometimes just to divert.
Robin:Oh, for sure.
Falcon Fuhr:So that's why I say you know, it's like I don't know how much of a you know. I would hope that it would cause a big distraction and upset, especially if it was not just us, if it was our supporters too, that would make the disruption.
Alexis:But the other thing is, if all the media, LGBTQ people walked off for a day, it would cause a disruption. Oh, just the hair and a disruption.
Falcon Fuhr:Oh, just to hear makeup people.
Chris Sushi :Oh yes, I mean the whole country. You don't really realize on how important we are to this world. It would just, it would be, but you made that comment earlier about us not being organized. We were once, maybe when Whitmire was running and the black not the current Whitmire mirror.
Chris Sushi :No, no, no I mean the system law but when the straight slate put up that magazine, put posters up all over AIDS, god's answer to homosexuality. I mean it was intense and it was the first and only time that we put out that vote block and everybody on that vote block won. And then we started breaking up our power.
Falcon Fuhr:That's the whole purpose behind what they're doing, those divide and conquer. They keep creating drama within every aspect, not just you know. Like I said, it's every people that are feeling marginalized black, hispanic, whatever it is Asians, us, muslims. They are creating diversion and causing problems within ourselves.
Alexis:I was going to say, and they're pointing it toward the other groups that are going to attack Right.
Falcon Fuhr:There's always going to be a figure being pointed at somebody else instead of at themselves. Yeah else and stuff at themselves. Yeah, and that's a whole per the whole fear-based mongering that they're doing to get elected and the whole hate behind it is what they're winning on. It's about creating fear and they're putting the fear in the stupid people, and the stupid people are so's voting in this country.
Chris Sushi :You know it's a. It all goes back to us that we've got to become more united.
Falcon Fuhr:It goes back to what I said. Mind your own damn business, stay in your lane.
Alexis:Well, but the biggest thing is, I think we have to start being smarter in how we respond to things, and you know these people all theoretically work for us.
Chris Sushi :Theoretically.
Alexis:It's heavy on the theory, but we need to start calling them out on that.
Chris Sushi :It's kind of like the person that looks at a cop and goes I pay your salary.
Alexis:That's different. No, you your salary.
Chris Sushi :That's different. No, you don't, that's different.
Alexis:Yeah, but if I say I want to talk to a Republican congressperson and he's not my district or anything else, I should be able to talk to him, and usually I can. It takes a little while to work it out, and I'm not interested in talking to the Democrats nearly as much as the Republicans, because the Democrats I see all the time and we appreciate you being here, to say the least. There's no blood on the floor. I think it all went well then. Not this time. All right.
Robin:Take care.
Alexis:No, it's not a bye yet it's not a bye yet. I'm sorry, and anybody that's listening to this. We really appreciate you supporting the podcast and go to our support link and if you would like to, we'd be happy to have you as a supporter. You can cancel at any time if you decide you don't like us after this, but you know it's one of those things and if you want to send us a comment, we have a comment that says talk back and we will read them and answer you.
Alexis:It sends us directly to us and we're looking forward to hearing from you and it comes in as sort of a doesn't go anywhere else, chat type stuff. So now bye, bye bye, bye.
Falcon Fuhr:Well, but
