# Making Gay History

Making Gay History is an oral history podcast on the subject of LGBT history, featuring trailblazers, activists, and allies. Most episodes draw on the three-decade-old audio archive of rare interviews conducted by the podcast's founder and host Eric Marcus in the late 1980s and 1990s.

## Background

Marcus began interviewing notable figures in the LGBTQ civil rights movement in the late 1980s while writing an oral history of the movement. The first edition of the book, published in 1992 under the title Making History: The Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Equal Rights, 1945-1990, was a Stonewall Book Award winner in 1992 and was described by acclaimed oral historian Studs Terkel as "[o]ne of the definitive works on gay life." In the late 1990s, Marcus undertook another round of interviews for the updated second edition of the book, which was titled Making Gay History (2002).
In 2016, Marcus revisited the archive of his original recordings, which had since been digitized by the New York Public Library, along with executive producer Sara Burningham, who suggested that the interviews be used as the basis for a podcast.
Since its launch in October 2016, the podcast has featured interviews with transgender rights icon Sylvia Rivera; pioneering lesbian writer Edythe D. Eyde aka Lisa Ben; American comedian, talk show host, and actress Ellen DeGeneres; popular advice columnist and LGBT advocate Pauline Phillips ("Dear Abby"); and others. It has also drawn on other audio archives to highlight the contributions of activists like Ernestine Eckstein and Bayard Rustin, and has used contemporary interviews to chronicle the life and work of Magnus Hirschfeld and Reed Erickson. In December 2019, they released the earliest known recording of Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson.
For the eighth season of the podcast, Marcus partnered with the Studs Terkel Radio Archive to release interviews conducted by the legendary radio host and oral historian Studs Terkel. Marcus cites Terkel and his work as inspiration for his own.
In February 2020, Making Gay History was adapted for the stage at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.
The podcast's ninth season, "Coming of Age During the AIDS Crisis," is an audio memoir exploring Marcus's memories of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s.

## Awards and honors

* In September 2017, NBC Out polled its constituents about their "favorite LGBTQ-inclusive podcasts," and Making Gay History was voted #2 out of 11 ranked.
* In October 2017, the Oral History Association honored Making Gay History with its Oral History in a Nonprint Format Award.
* On December 27, 2019, The Atlantic named Making Gay History's Stonewall 50 season one of the best podcasts of 2019.

## Seasons and episodes

| Season 1 | Episode |
| Episode 1 | Sylvia Rivera, Part I |
| Episode 2 | Wendell Sayers (called Paul Phillips in the book Making Gay History) |
| Episode 3 | Edythe Eyde |
| Episode 4 | Dr. Evelyn Hooker |
| Episode 5 | Frank Kameny |
| Episode 6 | Jeanne and Morty Manford |
| Episode 7 | Chuck Rowland |
| Episode 8 | Pauline Phillips (Dear Abby) |
| Episode 9 | Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen |
| Episode 10 | Vito Russo |
| Season 2 | Episode |
| Episode 1 | Marsha P. Johnson and Randy Wicker |
| Episode 2 | Shirley Willer |
| Episode 3 | Hal Call |
| Episode 4 | Jean O'Leary, Part I |
| Episode 5 | Jean O'Leary, Part II |
| Episode 6 | Morris Foote |
| Episode 7 | Herb Selwyn |
| Episode 8 | Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen |
| Episode 9 | Evander Smith and Herb Donaldson |
| Episode 10 | Joyce Hunter |
| Episode 11 | Tom Cassidy |
| BONUS | Love is Love |
| Season 3 | Episode |
| Episode 1 | Sylvia Rivera, Part II |
| Episode 2 | Perry Watkins |
| Episode 3 | Ellen DeGeneres |
| Episode 4 | J.J. Belanger |
| Episode 5 | Deborah Johnson and Zandra Rolón Amato |
| Episode 6 | Larry Kramer |
| Episode 7 | Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin |
| Episode 8 | Morris Kight |
| Episode 9 | Paulette Goodman |
| Episode 10 | Greg Brock |
| Episode 11 | Morty Manford |
| BONUS | Edythe Eyde's Gay Gal's Mixtape |
| BONUS | Kay Lahusen's Gay Table |
| BONUS | Farewell Dick Leitsch |
| Season 4 | Episode |
| Episode 1 | Introduction |
| Episode 2 | Magnus Hirschfeld |
| Episode 3 | Harry Hay |
| Episode 4 | Billye Talmadge |
| Episode 5 | Dorr Legg, Martin Block and Jim Kepner of ONE |
| Episode 6 | Stella Rush (who wrote under the pseudonym Sten Russell) |
| Episode 7 | Reed Erickson |
| Episode 8 | Bayard Rustin |
| Episode 9 | Ernestine Eckstein |
| Episode 10 | Dick Leitsch |
| Episode 11 | Martha Shelley |
| Season 5 | Episode |
| Episode 1 | Prelude to a Riot |
| Episode 2 | "Everything Clicked... And The Riot Was On" |
| Episode 3 | "Say it Loud! Gay and Proud!" |
| Episode 4 | Live from Stonewall |
| BONUS | Stonewall 50 Minisode: Marsha P. Johnson and Randy Wicker |
| BONUS | Stonewall 50 Minisode: Morty Manford |
| BONUS | Stonewall 50 Minisode: Barbara Gittings and Kay Lahusen |
| BONUS | Stonewall 50 Minisode: Craig Rodwell |
| Season 6 | Episode |
| Episode 1 | Ruth Simpson |
| Episode 2 | Vernon E. "Copy" Berg III |
| Episode 3 | Barbara Smith |
| Episode 4 | Nancy Walker |
| Episode 5 | Damien Martin |
| BONUS | From the Vault: Sylvia Rivera & Marsha P. Johnson, 1970 |
| Season 7 (Revisiting the Archive) | Episode |
| Episode 1 | Frank Kameny |
| Episode 2 | Edythe Eyde |
| Episode 3 | Wendell Sayers |
| Episode 4 | Shirley Willer |
| Episode 5 | Vito Russo |
| Episode 6 | Kay Lahusen's Gay Table |
| Episode 7 | Ellen DeGeneres |
| Episode 8 | Morris Foote |
| Episode 9 | Joyce Hunter |
| Episode 10 | Perry Watkins |
| Episode 11 | Larry Kramer |
| Episode 12 | Bayard Rustin |
| Episode 13 | Larah Helayne & Jean O'Leary |
| Season 8 (Studs Terkel Radio Archive) | Episode |
| Episode 1 | Christopher Isherwood |
| Episode 2 | Lorraine Hansberry |
| Episode 3 | John Falk Tomkinson ("Les-Lee") |
| Episode 4 | Quentin Crisp |
| Episode 5 | Mattachine Midwest (Valerie Taylor) |
| Episode 6 | Jill Johnston |
| Episode 7 | Leonard Matlovich |
| Episode 8 | Meg Christian |