Episode Guide
131+ episodes
Season 1
1924-1954
Season 1
Trailer
Coming soon, Devlyn Camp opens an FBI case file on a secret society of homosexuals that formed in Cold War America.
S1 E1
“Strange Sex Cult Exposed”
What is Mattachine? Why are they anonymous? Our case opens with a postal worker in 1920s Chicago.
S1 E2
“The Call”
Who is the Mattachine Foundation? What do they want?
S1 E3
“To Be Accused”
Why was Dale Jennings arrested? What purpose does ONE Magazine serve? How is queer culture defined by our community?
-Miss Jean Dempsey, Treasurer
S1 E4
“The Lavender Scare”
•
How and when did homophobia begin in the United States? How did the government weaponize it against us?
S1 E5
“Diversified Individualists”
•
How will political pressure from the Lavender Scare cause cracks in the Mattachine Foundation? If we are "moral risks," then what is our moral code?
S1 E6
“Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been A Homosexual?”
When an organization splinters into alliances, will the community they're organizing splinter, too? Welcome to the secret society's first constitutional convention.
S1 E7
“People Like Other People”
•
Are you a culturalist or an assimilationist? What are the pros and cons of each side, and what would you do to fight for yours? No one will be the same after this week's Mattachine meeting.
S1 E8
“Silly Letters”
•
Why do assimilationists reject queer culture? Hear the season from the point of view of the Mattachine's rising leader,
Hal Call.
S1 E9
“I Think That Man
Is One of Those”
Do we moderate our queer behavior in an assimilated world? What happens when Mattachine goes public? Or when the culturalists move forward with militant queer identity? "Quo Vadis, Mattachine Society?"
S1 E10
“Take This Crowd On”
•
When the Mattachine's founder is called to testify, when ONE Magazine is seized by the post office, and when the FBI begins to interrogate activists, how does the movement continue to fight?
Season 2
1954-1963
Season 1 Recap
You don’t have to hear season 1 to join for season 2, but in case you wanna brush up…
Season 2 Trailer
Season 2 picks up in 1954, right where we left off. A secret organization of lesbians forms as the national Mattachine Society crumbles. A political revolution is launched by a drag queen. Police raid gay spaces and street queens fight back. The masks come off and a militant minority is rising.
S2 E1
“Pacing,” or, “A Gay Girl of Good Moral Character”
Would you like to be part of a group of women like us?
The Daughters of Bilitis office hours are open.
S2 E2
“Disorderly Establishment”
•
Queer bars shutter across the Bay as homophile organizations rise.
How did we get here?
Put a pin in that and follow me back to San Francisco 1821.
S2 E3
“Resorts for Sex Perverts”
•
When police crack down, how do we respond?
S2 E4
“The Fairy Project”
•
How could you possibly tell they were queer?
S2 E4-A
“Letter to the ACLU”
•
An astronomer writes to the ACLU.
S2 E5
“In the Library Lounge”
•
Who are our allies on the outside? Who are our enemies on the inside?
S2 E5-A
“To Be Accused
Is To Be Guilty”
An astronomer faces the Civil Service Commission.
S2 E6
“Faces Behind the Names”
•
Flyers, magazines, television — how should we tell the public that we’re organizing?
S2 E7
“A Useful Citizen”
How long have transgender, intersex, and gender-nonconforming humans existed? This week we’ll explore some of our known genderqueer history, from ancient Sumer to 1959.
S2 E7-A
“Destroy A Citizen”
Frank Kameny is under the boot.
S2 E8
“Peddled Like Pornography”
Whom Should We Tell? And who won’t find out once the biggest scandal in homophile history breaks?
S2 E9
“The Twilight Woman”
Mid-season finale:
an “ethical homosexual culture” overwhelms the Movement.
S2 E10
“The Hose
& Heels Club”
•
José Sarria for Supervisor! Did you register to vote yet?
•
vote.org
S2 E11
“The Rejected,
the Elected”
•
What will we say when we finally have their attention?
S2 E12
“The Pleasure of a Response,” or,
“How to Handle A Federal Interrogation”
Enough schisms, how about an alliance?
S2 E13
“Making This
Movement Move”
•
Season finale •
We’ve found each other, we’re organized, we’re ready — how do we demand change? •
Guest starring Joan Jett Blakk as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
free season 2 bonus episodes
“Live and Let Live: 6 Decades Later” •
Interview w/ Randy Wicker
Featuring Sylvia Rivera, Randy’s friend Michael, and stories about Marsha P. Johnson, the Mattachine, and radical activism. •
Recorded in Hoboken, New Jersey, January 16, 2020.
“Return to Normalcy” •
2020 Election Day bonus!
The 1920 presidential election proves yet again that history repeats itself, from fear-mongering to political scandal, and even a sitting president infected by the pandemic he downplayed.
Make sure you have a plan to vote!
“Trans-sexuals and the Police”
on KPFA, April 10, 1968
“A Step Higher”
w/ Mattachino Wendell Sayers
Three transgender San Franciscans discuss police problems and their work as members of C.O.G., Conversion our Goal, with Police Community Relations Officer Elliot Blackstone of the San Francisco Police Department. Herb Kutchins of the San Francisco Bail Project moderates.
Historian Eric Marcus interviews Wendell Sayers, an attorney, the first Black assistant attorney general for the state of Colorado, and one of few Black members of the Mattachine Society.
He attended the 6th annual Mattachine convention in 1959, a dramatic event featured in S2 E8.
Season 3
1963-1970
The final season of Queer Serial.
Season 3
Preview
•
The final season picks up in 1963, right where we left off, but the movement feels light-years ahead.
New alliances—and new schisms—send the activists taking different tacks in the fight for queer liberation:
“the church, the couch, and the courts.”
We’ll experience some of the most famous raids in queer history, march in the first defiant pickets for our rights, and shake the walls of the United States Government.
S3 E1
“A Minority of
Militant Homosexuals”
“A secret world grows open and bolder. Society is forced to look at it—and try to understand it.”
S3 E2
“The Raid on
California Hall”
“Every month you move forward by leaps and bounds.”
•
This is your ticket to the New Year’s Mardi Gras Ball hosted by the Council on Religion and the Homosexual.
S3 E3
“The Raid on California Hall:
After the Ball”
“Angry Ministers Rip Police”
•
The fever breaks in San Francisco.
S3 E4
“Aunties,” or,
“The Style of Tomorrow”
“Either you keep up with the movement, or you will be dropped by the wayside…
That’s just the way movements evolve.”
S3 E5
“Homos on the March,” or,
“Keep Moving, Faggots”
“Life with the homophile movement continues to be exciting and stimulating and infinitely interesting and rewarding.”
E5-A
"Detective at Hotel Is Held in Extortion" August 5, 1965
“The house detective, Edward Murphy, was held on $7,500 bail for a hearing Aug. 13. He was impersonating an officer.”
S3 E6
“The Sip-in
& the Social Prophet"
“I think we have to decide how far we can go for caring about what heterosexuals think.”
E6-A
“Nationwide Ring Preying on Prominent Deviates”
“The decoy would lure the victim to a hotel room, usually from a midtown bar, and get him into a compromising situation.”
S3 E7
“STREET POWER”
•
“The drug addicts, pillheads, teenage hustlers, lesbians, and homosexuals who make San Francisco’s ‘MEAT RACK’ their home are tired of living in the midst of the filth thrown out on to the sidewalks and into the streets by nearby businessmen.”
E7-A
“Mafia Buys Clubs
for Homosexuals”
“Another such private club will open next week. Nearly all are in Manhattan and about one-third are operated by underworld figures.”
S3 E8
“Chicago Ain’t No
Sissy Town”
“Through the blue cigarette smoke you can make out the outlines of crowded tables.”
•
Meet me on Crilly Court.
S3 E9
“Mattachine Millennia,”
or, “The Whole World Is Watching”
“One gets weary of trying to confront the people with the necessity of assessing their own history.”
E9-A
“Gay Party At Police Station”
MSNY Newsletter • June 1969
“The cops herded more than fifty very elegantly dressed, and very high, male homosexuals, four women, one sex-change-in-progress, and one dog (belonging to a customer) into the paddy wagons.”
S3 E10
“The Walls
of Jericho”
“The Homosexual Revolution of ’69 started this week in San Francisco as militant homosexuals made war on both gay and straight Establishments.”
S3 E11
Stonewall Inn
Night 1:
“The Devil with the Blue Dress On”
“You already got the payoff.
Now here’s some more.”
Check out these maps of Greenwich Village and the Stonewall here.
S3 E12
Stonewall Inn
Night 2:
“Gay Power”
“We can influence our existence—if we can only come together.” ✌🏿✌🏾✌🏼
S3 E13
Finale:
“Liberation Day”
•
“2-4-6-8, Gays unite to smash the State!”
The series finale of Queer Serial.
more extras from 2022
SAY GAY 🍊
March 14, 2022
Join me for a surprisingly fun dive into the history of Florida’s gay hate! History repeats itself in strange ways during the battle against the recent “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
Devlyn interviews Joey Soloway, creator of Transparent
March 4, 2022
We had a fabulous chat about creating work that uplifts minority voices, navigating an industry built for dudes, & how we blend art & activism to tell stories.
support my queer history projects
Subscribe to my Patreon for bonus content from Queer Serial, and my other LGBTQ+ history projects! Spin-off episodes, exclusive interviews, rewards, & archive dives
PATREON.COM/QUEERSERIAL
Thank you for helping me preserve & share queer history!!
See the bonus episode catalogue below…
Season 4
Give ‘Em Hell, Harry!
The Man Who Kept Harvey Milk’s Dream Alive
A Queer Serial sister series
Why stop at Stonewall? Coming soon, a collaboration between Queer Serial producer & host Devlyn Camp, and historian Will Roscoe.
She's a sort-of sequel, a spin-off — a sister series!
In 1978, the LGBTQ community was shocked and grieving. Harvey Milk had given us hope. Then he was murdered by a former cop named Dan White. On his audio will, Milk recommended a list of possible successors, including a relatively unknown volunteer in his campaign, Harry Britt.
Over three months in 2009, Roscoe recorded interviews with Harvey Milk’s successor, Supervisor Harry Britt, who turned Harvey Milk’s politics into reality. Will and Harry experienced Harvey’s assassination. They were in the candlelight march that night. And they were at City Hall when angry queers rioted, burning 14 cop cars.
Harry Britt refused to apologize.
In a new series, we’ll tell you Milk’s story, and pick up where the movie left off. You’ll hear the story of a shy minister was chosen by Milk to fill his shoes in the event of assassination—and how he kept the movement going forward.
Listen at queerserial.com/harrybritt
INFAMOUS CRIMES:
WHITE NIGHT RIOT INTERVIEWS
Queer Serial producer Devlyn Camp talks to rioters who were present at the legendary May 21, 1979
uprising following the verdict in the Dan White trial.
Listen to the preview here!
Listen only on Patreon or Apple Podcasts.
🔥
“We needed to be a minority that you fear.”
Harry Britt
Season 5
GAY PANIC! 1955
A Queer Serial sister series
9 episodes detailing the true story of a gay “grooming” panic in Boise, Idaho.
Ron DeSantis & Anita Bryant were not the first figures in American history to gain power from fanning the flames of queer fear. Over one bleak winter in the conservative 1950s, the town of Boise was changed forever.
A standalone serial podcast about a true scandal in queer history—in a new city with no Mattachine, no Bilitis, & no one to turn to.
queerserial.com/gaypanic
Forgotten Fairy Tales
“queer serial” bonus episodes
Spin-off stories, standalone episodes, stories cut from Queer Serial.
Listen at Patreon.com/QueerSerial
or subscribe to bonus episodes here on Apple Podcasts
for $3/month.
Thank you so much for helping me preserve & share queer history!
🎧 📚 📺
Patreon subscribers who prefer to listen to bonus episodes
from your phone’s podcast app, click here.
"A Murder in Midtown"
•
A 1930s true queer murder mystery in New York City.
Lisa Ben’s
“Gayest Songs
on Wax”
•
“A Bisexual Ki-Ki Sonofabitch
Butch/Femme, oh Boy!”
The story of
Stella Rush
November 24, 1958:
“The Homosexual
In Our Society”
on KPFA
Interview w/
Radical Faerie Joey Cain,
voice of Elver Barker
"The Most Pleasant
Surprise of My Life"
Letters to the Mattachine
Billye
Before
Bilitis
Interview
w/ Jon Martinez,
voice of José Sarria!
Randy Wicker’s
"Live and Let Live"
September 1, 1962, on WBAI
The first conversation between homosexuals about gay life on American radio, covered in season 2, episode 11 of Queer Serial.
“Nation,
Government,
President, & Jenkins”
In LBJ's 1964 re-election campaign, the October surprise went down at the YMCA near the White House.
"The Erotic Revolution"
w/ Randy Wicker &
Lawrence Lipton
We're diving back into the WBAI archive to hear Wicker interview author and Beat poet Lawrence Lipton on his new book about modern sexuality.
August 22, 1965
Eckstein, Tobin,
& Gittings
January 15, 1966
Photographer Kay 'Tobin' Lahusen and her lover Barbara Gittings, editor of "The Ladder," interview New York Daughters of Bilitis VP Ernestine Eckstein.
Listen to Part 2 here.
Devlyn at
Outspoken:
LGBTQ Storytelling
A 2018 story about discovering my gender while producing the first season of Queer Serial.
Hear more stories like these on another podcast I produce,
On the Mic: Outspoken LGBTQ+ Storytelling
LIVE at Sidetrack in Chicago.
1968 & 2020
w/ Chicago Gay Liberation's
Gary Chichester
Gary was at the very first march for gay liberation—in Chicago, a day before New York & LA—on June 27, 1970. He was also present for the 1968 DNC police riots, both of which were covered on Queer Serial. We discuss the similarities to 2020.
Randy Wicker Radio
Bonus Series
Randy Wicker’s 1962 gay radio show
(featured in season 2, episode 11 of Queer Serial)
went so well, they let him talk to anyone he wanted!
As I archive Randy’s life with him from his home in Hoboken,
we’re digging up, digitizing, & re-releasing all of his fabulous
radio interviews with strange and fascinating people.
Listen to the free preview here!
Listen at Patreon.com/QueerSerial
or subscribe to bonus episodes here on Apple Podcasts
for $3/month.
Thank you so much for helping me preserve & share queer history!
🎧 📚 📺
Patreon subscribers who prefer to listen to bonus episodes
from your phone’s podcast app, click here.
“Live & Let Live”
September 1, 1962
•
“25 Cents A Wino”
July 23, 1962
•
“Freaks, Carnivals,
& Con Men”
May 25, 1963
“The Lesbians”
December 9, 1963
•
“Interview with a
Texas Working Girl”
March 19, 1964
“Lawrence Lipton &
the Erotic Revolution”
August 22, 1965
“Long Live Anarchy”
w/ Robert Anton Wilson
c. 1965
“Nightmare in Nirvana”
w/ St. Philomena
March 5, 1966
.
Explore clips & more social media from Randy Wicker Radio here:
On the Mic:
OutSpoken LGBTQ+ Storytelling
live at sidetrack in chicago
Every month, people from all over Chicago gather at Sidetrack, one of the city’s longest-running gay bars, to hear stories told live by LGBTQ+ people (and even some cis heteros!).
Now, we’re going back into the archives — 6 years of archives — to bring the stories to you.
Hosted by Kim L. Hunt, Art Johnston, & Archy Jamjun
Artistic Creator David Fink
Stage Manager Brad Balof
Audio/Visual Tech Bryan Smith
Podcast Producer & Host Devlyn Camp
More info at sidetrackchicago.com
Mattachine Meeting
exclusive Bonus show
A brand new interview show for my biggest Patreon supporters!
Join me in conversation with activists, queer legends, & other special guests!
Listen at Patreon.com/QueerSerial
or subscribe to bonus episodes here on Apple Podcasts.
Thank you so much for helping me preserve & share queer history!
🎧 📚 📺
Patreon subscribers who prefer to listen to bonus episodes
from your phone’s podcast app, click here.
meeting w/ Rumi Missabu
My very first guest is original Cockette and genderfuck visual storyteller Rumi Missabu! He’s a Hollywood kid who fell off the grid, and became a star in 1970s San Francisco. In a special 2-part first episode of Mattachine Meeting, we talk about everything from ancient history to marriage & pronouns, along with Rumi’s many stories.
Listen to the free preview
with the infamous
Rumi Missabu:
Rumi Missabu
Part 1
Recorded December 2, 2021
Rumi Missabu
Part 2
Recorded December 2, 2021
Mattachine Meeting
3-part free bonus episode
w/ Rick Garcia & Albert Williams
Over three episodes of my bonus podcast, join me and Chicago legends Rick Garcia & Albert Williams (AKA Rita & Wilma) as we gossip through the 15-year battle to win Chicago’s Human Rights Ordinance to protect the city’s gay community. Rick was an activist leading the fight, and his best pal Albert was reporting on it for the gay papers. Click here to scroll through to browse the papers with us at the Gerber/Hart LGBTQ Archives—in near-chronological order as we discuss them. You can see & hear the story of the battle to win protection for queer Chicagoans from discrimination in housing, jobs, and public accommodations. Chicago’s Ordinance on Human Rights was approved by the Chicago City Council on December 21, 1988. 🎉
Listen at Patreon.com/QueerSerial or subscribe to bonus episodes here on Apple Podcasts. Learn more at queerserial.com/chicago.
Part 1:
“There’s never gonna be a ‘right moment.’”
Part 2:
“Nobody is gonna deny me and my people.”
Part 3:
“Again and again and again.”
Activist Rick Garcia:
meeting w/ Lisa E. Davis
Lisa Davis is a retired teacher and author of two queer history books. Undercover Girl follows the true story of Angela Calomiris, a lesbian photographer in the Village who was undercover in the Communist Party, secretly working as an informant for the FBI. Under the Mink tells the story of drag kings & queens who worked in the mafia’s Village nightclubs in the 1940s, who Lisa got to know personally.
In today’s Mattachine Meeting, we’ll talk about how she discovered these stories. Lisa has also discovered some interesting connections from today’s gay panic in Florida to another in the 1940s. She also tells us about legendary drag kings Blackie Dennis and Buddy Bubbles Kent. We talk about all this and more! Join us!
Original release date: April 19, 2023
Listen at Patreon.com/QueerSerial or subscribe to bonus episodes here on Apple Podcasts.
meeting w/ kelley coures
Listen to this bonus episode FREE on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts!
A Mattachine meeting on Main Street in downtown Evansville, Indiana—my hometown!—with special guest historian Kelley Coures!
Pre-order his new book Out In Evansville: An LGBTQ+ History of River City here or anywhere you get books. Read Kelley’s fabulous piece about Evansville’s red light district here.
Watch that Jerry Springer clip we discussed on my Instagram here or on YouTube here. You can also see Evansville featured on a recent episode of HBO Max’s "We’re Here." (Eureka is waving a flag outside the courthouse my Granny used to work in.) Also, check out Someplace Else if you’re in town! And say hello to Li’l Sebastian. 🐴
Original release date: January 18, 2023
More coming soon! 🎉
Bonus episodes
Forgotten Fairy Tales
spin-off episodes, standalone stories, & exclusive interviews
Randy Wicker Radio
Join me & Randy in the Wicker Archives as we uncover his 1960s radio shows interviewing all sorts of sexual deviants.
Mattachine Meeting
A new exclusive podcast for my biggest Patreon supporters:
Join me & activists, queer legends, & other special guests for extended interviews.
Sister Series
Give ‘Em Hell, Harry!
The Man Who Kept
Harvey Milk’s Dream Alive
&
Infamous Crimes:
White Night Riot Interviews