KPFT’s ‘Queer Voices’ Is Central to LGBTQ+ Houstonians

There’s an empty lot on Lovett Road, between the Alliance Française and a small row of brick townhouses. It’s fenced in, overrun with tall grasses and welcoming hypothesis on whether or not something will ever populate the house once more. Maybe it’s doomed to the identical empty, liminal destiny as the previous websites of Disco Kroger, Half Worth Books, and 3-6-9 Oriental Bistro: a logo of builders tearing Montrose historical past down and leaving naught however bald patches behind the place as soon as Houston’s queer group may thrive by itself phrases.

90.1 KPFT, Houston’s Pacifica Radio affiliate, as soon as referred to as the uncared for Lovett lot residence. It occupied a rickety two-story yellow home—usually adorned with murals—and proudly displayed what remained of the broadcasting tools that was bombed by the Ku Klux Klan in 1970. The station gave native LGBTQ+ voices a platform proper because the queer liberation motion was kicking off. The present Queer Voices continues to defiantly dominate the airwaves, although the historic KPFT house has lengthy been decreased to splinters and mud—coinciding with the rights, dignity, and public well being of the queer group getting stripped on a number of legislative ranges.

“KPFT is celebrating its fifty fifth 12 months of operation. I’ve been a listener all that point. There was queer radio nearly from the start,” says Deborah Moncrief Bell, who cohosts Queer Voices alongside Brett Cullum and Davis Mendoza Darusman. “Ray Hill was concerned, in fact, within the first present that I do know of. We consider that we’re the longest operating queer radio present within the nation.”

Queer Voices started life as Wilde ‘n’ Stein (named after queer authors Oscar Wilde and Gertrude Stein) in 1975, 5 years after the Stonewall riots. LGBTQ+ rights and jail system reform activist Ray Hill served as its first host, with Mike Miesch, Jack Valinski, and Bell finally becoming a member of in. The College of Houston maintains an archive of 41 episodes dated between 1979 and 1992, providing a snapshot of how queer Houstonians lived and mentioned the key information tales impacting their group. There’s a 1984 episode on the assassination of Harvey Milk, who grew to become California’s first overtly homosexual man elected to public workplace when he was voted into the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. One other episode involves listeners reside from the town’s Satisfaction parade in 1990.

Bell got here onboard as cohost within the early Nineteen Eighties, across the time she first embraced the lesbian facet of her self-described “bisexual lesbian” identification.

“After I got here in, it was Jack Valinski [as host], and Ray was nonetheless considerably concerned. We’ve at all times considered [the show] as a collective, so completely different contributors make up the core group,” she says. “And every so often, we’ll have a particular particular person, somebody that gives one thing, contribute.”

Wilde ‘n’ Stein was canceled in 1992, however KPFT listeners clamored to have one other LGBTQ+ present on the air. Lesbian & Homosexual Voices—additionally archived at UH—debuted that very same 12 months, and stored its predecessor’s format even after rebranding because the extra inclusively named Queer Voices in 2002. The present, regardless of its identify, has at all times featured visitors who talk about well timed LGBTQ+ matters and lived experiences, together with views past these of the hosts. Gender and sexuality are spectrums, not straight (pun meant) strains, and different backgrounds like incapacity, race, and sophistication can all affect how a person navigates their queerness.

“We attempt to be sure that there’s illustration from all points of our group,” Bell says.

Current visitors embody Broadway star D. Jerome, who performs the Tin Man within the present nationwide tour of The Wiz; Lesbians of Coloration founder Kendra Walker; Alley Theatre playwright Isaac Gómez; and intersex activist and artist Mo Cortez. They’ve welcomed native political trailblazers Phyllis Frye, the primary transgender choose in america, and former Houston mayor Annise Parker, an out and proud lesbian. Bell has additionally interviewed Joan Jett, Alexandra Billings, and Hannah Gadsby.

Queer Voices, in all its incarnations, has at all times served as a first-person perception into the political and social modifications shaping the LGBTQ+ group. Listening via the archives is likely one of the most dear investments in studying about Houston’s in depth queer historical past. Bell, Hill, and the opposite hosts have been and are activists each inside and outdoors the recording sales space, spreading messages of solidarity and schooling alongside the essential human rights owed to all LGBTQ+ peoples.

“We have been type of a lifeline again within the day, within the ’80s, with individuals who weren’t out but, and particularly younger folks. They may activate the radio they usually may hear constructive voices about being a homosexual, lesbian, or nevertheless you establish,” Bell says. “We now have been a part of the progress, I consider, as a result of we did at all times have that strategy of sending a constructive message.”

On the top of the AIDS disaster, Bell and fellow queer activists taught fellow Houstonians about protected intercourse. They’ve collaborated with the Houston LGBTQ+ Political Caucus to endorse queer-friendly, if not themselves overtly queer, representatives. They present up on the Satisfaction parade yearly to function commentators. 1000’s of Houstonians tune in to each the reside broadcast and the downloadable podcast model that the crew posts proper after. Listeners come from nearly each continent due to this accessibility, one thing producer Bryan Hlavinka has on his thoughts relating to the way forward for Queer Voices.

“Radio appears to be type of a dying media supply, so I see [the show] shifting to a streaming podcast completely in some level sooner or later,” he says. “Not able to say goodbye to KPFT but, however I feel that’s on the horizon.”

No matter whether or not the present pivots to a full-time podcast or maintains its radio-and-a-podcast technique, continued entry to such a useful resource is crucial within the present international local weather. Because the previous decade of progress in LGBTQ+ rights are starting to erode internationally, Queer Voices and different packages function a beacon of hope in opposition to the encroaching darkness.

“I really feel like we’re dwelling in Nineteen Thirties Germany, or Gilead from The Handmaid’s Story,” Hlavinka says. He married in 2021 and expresses concern that his union could also be legally overturned if political hostilities in opposition to queer folks proceed.

A lot because it did within the Nineteen Eighties, on the top of the AIDS epidemic and subsequent abandonment by the Reagan administration, Queer Voices can function a clarion name offering assist. It may unfold data on how the LGBTQ+ group has traditionally dealt with its worst moments, offering perception into preventing again to guard civil rights. And this time, it may possibly attain past the KPFT airwaves to achieve the ears of queer folks and their allies anyplace on the planet. That’s a strong platform.

“What I’ve at all times thought is essential about Queer Voices isn’t just that we have fun and showcase what queer folks in Houston are doing—the assorted occasions, the politics, the cultural issues—however we’ve been a method to doc it,” Bell says.