Oral History with Michael Todd, Part 2

Amanda Wray:

All right. So today is March the 22nd?

Michael Todd:

Fifth.

Amanda Wray:

Fifth? [laughing]

Michael Todd:

March 24th.

Amanda Wray:

All right.

Michael Todd:

Sunday.

Amanda Wray:

Today is Sunday, March the 24th and I am here with Michael Todd

Amanda Wray:

Okay. I'd really like to talk about, well tell me about that journal entry that you read.

Michael Todd:

Oh, so just in, because of our conversation last week I thought, oh well let me go pull my journal and see. It was on September 9th, 1994. The first thing it says, "This is my first night in Asheville." And I talked about the excitement about starting something new. I talked a little bit about the grief of leaving my chosen family, and I use that word, in Tennessee. I even talked a little bit 00:01:00about conflict with my biological family but there was nothing conflictual happened. Just kind of like where I was in society verses them verses my family. There was definitely a continuum between my family in Tennessee, which I very well connected with on different levels and then my biological family; which is one of the reasons I moved here, to be close to them, but how I just did not connect when them on so many levels.

Michael Todd:

I gave even an example of, and I'm paraphrasing now, but something like, "I can't understand how they're so concerned about the price of a golf club." Just coming from different things of what we found important and not important, and then I had something in there about my mom coming for my birthday which would be on September 30th which would be a couple weeks, and I didn't really want her to 00:02:00but there was no real reason not to. I wasn't ready for those worlds to come together yet. Still had some things I needed to settle on. So that was kind of the gist of it.

Amanda Wray:

How often do you journal?

Michael Todd:

Sporadic and have not done it in a while.

Amanda Wray:

Oh.

Michael Todd:

When I pulled my stuff out I had about six or seven journal books, so ...

Amanda Wray:

This is because I like writing, but what did journaling do for you? Why do you journal?

Michael Todd:

Got it out. There was a time that I just, I call it visiting these pages, and I would just sit and, and that comes from some book, The Artist's Way or something, although I don't consider myself an artist. It was something about, just sit and free flow write. So I did some of that. There was also a time that I would draw a tarot card every morning and then journal something about what that card meant and wove that into kind of what was going on with me at that time.

Michael Todd:

So in a sense it's almost a sense of, I wouldn't call it a spiritual practice but it was a time of reflection. Spiritual things often came up for me. I don't think I could sit here and give you an example, other than to say, you know, I'm feeling nurtured by the Earth or something like that.

Amanda Wray:

Do you think you'll pick it back up?

Michael Todd:

Seems like I just hit it sporadically. I don't know. I don't know.

Amanda Wray:

Okay. I would like to talk about the LGBT organizations and events that you maybe in the early days here in the area were part of or saw when they were going on, and then now.

Michael Todd:

Okay. I will get to that question. I will give you a little bit of preface that really my stuff around LGBT issues and events and stuff happened in Florida. 00:04:00That was kind of-

Amanda Wray:

Where that was?

Michael Todd:

Where the lesbians brought me up.

Amanda Wray:

Okay.

Michael Todd:

So yes, that's-

Amanda Wray:

And we talked about that-

Michael Todd:

Yes, yes.

Amanda Wray:

A little bit. ACT UP was one of them, right?

Michael Todd:

Queer Nation, ACT UP.

Amanda Wray:

And Queer Nation.

Michael Todd:

And yeah. That's where the rallies would happen once a year, whether it was in June in October, around Gay Pride month or Coming Out month. That's when I went to my first March on Washington, well my only March on Washington in '93. But when I got here, there was a small group of folks that met at the, I think it's the Episcopalian church down in Biltmore and Village. I probably learned about that through the news rag that's still going on, Mountain Express. They met once a week and I went to that every week. It was interesting because it was that 00:05:00whole, it was still that dichotomy of me being kind of more of the Radical Fairy Paganistic, and here's the more norm gay and lesbian. But I liked them. They really liked me. I went for a number of years I think.

Michael Todd:

So that was going on and that was kind of a social thing. I even had some of my fairy friends come and we did a, not a presentation but a circle. We modeled how we did things in the fairy world like sitting in a circle and passing a talking stick and sharing from the heart. And then I actually even brought in some performance art, and that was very interesting. I remember them being very like, just amazed and like, wow that was something new and interesting. So that felt 00:06:00good to kind of bring that gift to that little community.

Amanda Wray:

Did they ask for that or did you suggest?

Michael Todd:

I probably suggested it. I don't think they would've known to ask for it. But I don't remember the details exactly. I just knew that there was a performance group coming through, they were staying with me and I'm like, "You want to do a little piece here?" And then I asked the folks, "Do you want to do it?" And of course they did.

Michael Todd:

Actually I think I still have a video tape of a section of that. I don't remember the name of it.

Amanda Wray:

Oh. I would love to see it.

Michael Todd:

It was something like, I want to say adopted but what's the opposite? If you take a child ...

Amanda Wray:

Kidnapped?

Michael Todd:

Kidnapped by the Fairies or something like that. Yeah. Anyway it was kind of interesting.

Michael Todd:

There was a couple other groups. There was this Southern Appalachian gay and lesbian thing. They actually were in the news because they had done, you know where a group signs up to take part of cleaning part of the highway? So they had done that, and their sign, and it made big news because their sign, every time they would put it up it would be completely taken down within a record amount of time, like 24 hours it was gone.

Michael Todd:

Also in the news here was, it was like one of the first, or at least the first that I ... actually I was not part of this one. It happened before I got here. It might've been the first gay LGBT, and I don't even think they went by LGBT all that much back then, rally. There was a picture in one of the, it was called 00:08:00the advocate, the Gay Advocate. I saw this in Florida. It was a picture where it said, some mountain guy was holding a sign that said, "Faggot go home," but they misspelled faggot so it kind of made them look like some kind of backwards hillbilly place that can't even spell the word faggot right.

Michael Todd:

There had been one and then also in the news was about this, they kept taking down the signs. They might even have wrote ugly stuff on it as well. But anyway.

Michael Todd:

So I got loosely involved in that. It was going down as I came in. I was quickly put on the board of directors as their treasurer, but it was failing. There was maybe three or four members left and it didn't go anywhere and it was all women. I think it had just run its course. What else was going on back then?

Amanda Wray:

Yeah what came in then to replace it? What can up next?

Michael Todd:

I don't know that anything did. I don't know if anything came in to replace it. I know other things came up. I really then started focusing more on building the fairy community here. And actually, that was actually going really well. Lot of-

Amanda Wray:

Is that late '90s, mid '90s?

Michael Todd:

Yeah, I would say '90s. Well a lot of my friends from Tennessee, people that I knew from Gatherings were coming by and visiting and loving it and moving here. Janelle Kapour who was a big mover and shaker, still is. Obviously she's not queer, but she certainly identifies with the queer, I wouldn't say she's not 00:10:00queer she just doesn't really identify as a lesbian. She moved in and she's a really kind of big global thinker activist person.

Amanda Wray:

Would she be any good for us interview do you think?

Michael Todd:

Maybe, I don't know. She's so busy I don't think you will ever her.

Amanda Wray:

Yeah. Oh.

Michael Todd:

She really travels all over the world. She does sustainable house building with mud, teaches cob. She has a Asheville something something right by the ballpark downtown where she's taken this whole area.

Michael Todd:

But anyway. She moved in with me, so that was also brought a lot of people. It was times that I would have 12 people staying with me at my house on any given night. And I'm working, probably one of the only people working in the group. But there was a lot of people coming through, so that's where my energies went into.

Michael Todd:

I kind of really probably lost touch with what was happening in more gaystream, 00:11:00gaystream ... mainstream gay society in Asheville.

Amanda Wray:

I like that.

Michael Todd:

Yeah, gaystream. So but there was stuff going on. I don't know the names of organizations but there was some because then we started having regular LGBT rallies and marches and those got big and organized. I didn't not help organize them but we were always a pretty big piece of it.

Michael Todd:

Interestingly enough, the community that really, we connected more with and did a lot around LGBTQ, and this really kind of brought in the QT piece, was we linked up with a anarchist community. We really made very interesting 00:12:00bedfellows, literally and figuratively.

Michael Todd:

There was a strong anarchist community was building up, which now that I think up fits perfectly with the Radical Fairy community. So the fairies were coming in that were very anarchist anyway, and they got a house down in Montford which has since burned down, but then that is where the anarchist and fairy community really came together. And they started doing these more in your face rallies. Right after 9/11 happened, I remember, and then right around that same time there was a lot of the gay marriage stuff going on and hitting the news and getting really ugly. The anarchists really joined with the fairies. I think 00:13:00that's also when the transgender community around here started to really take off.

Michael Todd:

So yeah, there was a lot going on. But it was all kind of splintered, but kind of together, too. Not completely splintered.

Michael Todd:

You know, I always said this and I'll still say it. It was harder here in many respects than it was in Florida, and I think it was because Florida, we had to stick together because it was just us. There wasn't a lot of splintering because there wasn't that many of us. In Asheville, there were so many amazing people that we didn't have to all be together. We could be parts of all these different splintered types, or part of the splinter. And you knew about these other folks that were going on, but you didn't really, you know, you would interface at 00:14:00rallies or they may show up at your house at a house party or something like that but we weren't tight.

Michael Todd:

It was actually harder to be tight with the community in Asheville because there was so many great little things going on. It wasn't this force to be together kind of thing.

Amanda Wray:

You didn't have to build momentum for something, right?

Michael Todd:

Yup. Yeah. And it made it harder too because there was like, all right, everybody had all their different little things. What were you going to be? Where were you going to spend your Friday night or your Saturday night or your Wednesday night or whatever, because there was so many different little things going on, so.

Amanda Wray:

When communities came together, the anarchist community and the Radical Fairies, what'd that look like? What kinds of things did you all do together?

Michael Todd:

Oh. Yeah, yeah. We did a big fall, or we staged a gay marriage downtown. We 00:15:00busted many anti-gay rallies that were happening downtown, and it got tense, it got ugly. I remember getting shoved and pushed and threatened. Anarchists now, they fight back. That was a different thing. I wasn't used to fighting back. I'd get up in your face but not aggressive. The anarchists were more aggressive. They didn't care.

Michael Todd:

But I remember we would be at these rallies. They would be up there talking about anti-homosexual stuff and the demise of the American family, and then some anarchist boy would grab me and just start French kissing me in the midst just to piss everybody off. And so there was a lot of that kind of stuff.

Michael Todd:

I partook, which had some ramifications at work, I partook in a false marriage 00:16:00where I wore this really big wedding dress, it was very gorgeous, a lampshade that all these plastic flowers on it and I married. I have no idea if this person was truly ... actually I do have an idea. I think she was biologically female, but lived in this total gender neutral where you really didn't know whether this was male or female, and whether they were born male or female or identified male or female. It was this really-

Amanda Wray:

Fluid.

Michael Todd:

Fluid, neutral. What was her name? I can't remember. It will come to me at some point, but so we, in the spur of the moment because, I will just say he for lack of other pronouns, had on a tuxedo. No, no. No, no, no. That was the one who 00:17:00married us. There was a guy who had on a tuxedo, and I had on a dress, so we married and, oh what was that queen's name? I cannot remember, the one who married. But she/he had a huge, huge presence. Everybody probably stopped and like, all right. What am I looking at?

Michael Todd:

So that made the newspaper and I was called into the CEO's office the next morning.

Amanda Wray:

And how long had you been at your employer at that point?

Michael Todd:

I hadn't been at that place very long. But I had a message on my voicemail when I came in on Monday and morning and said, "Be in my office at eight o'clock," which I got there at eight o'clock so I just had to hightail it down there. And when I walked in there's my supervisor, there's the CEO, there's the CEO's secretary taking minutes.

Amanda Wray:

Oh, God.

Michael Todd:

The CEO said, "I've called you here because of what was in the paper. This is 00:18:00nothing formal or official but I just have some concerns."

Michael Todd:

I said, "First of all, you can't tell me this is not formal or official. You've got my supervisor here. You've got your secretary taking minutes," and there was a couple other people there. Oh, director of human resources was there. I said, "This feels very official to me."

Michael Todd:

Then he said, "Are you aware of what you're doing?" And I said something to the equivalent of, "I was born an effeminate homosexual in the Bible belt south. I know everything single fucking thing I do, and I know the consequences of everything that I do including being here in this office."

Michael Todd:

So it was tense, but nothing really came of that. Interesting enough, I think the guy's name is Ralph Phelps, does that ring a bell? He's the big guy who, very big prominent, shows up at all these churches, shows up at all these 00:19:00soldier's funerals saying that people are dying because they don't eradicate homosexuals. They would always have these big signs of anal sex going on, and they would show up at all of these funerals, Matthew Shepherd's funeral, they were there.

Amanda Wray:

Oh, God.

Michael Todd:

The CEO said, "I want to know every time," because I think he realized he couldn't tell me I couldn't do it, because he was an attorney also. But he said, "Well I want to know when you're going to do these things. I want to be aware of it."

Michael Todd:

Well interesting enough, about two weeks later this big group was coming to his Catholic church to protest them. And so I got to go to his office a couple weeks later and I brought in some literature. I said, "Here are these folks coming to your church." And sure enough there was a big article, showed the signs that 00:20:00they brought, things that they did. And they basically were going to church and condemning Christians for not coming out more strongly against homosexuals.

Michael Todd:

So, oh he went through the roof, in a positive way toward me. He took it to his church officials. You know these people are coming, duh, duh, duh. So I think he got a little taste of like, oh. I kind of see what Michael's doing now. So I said, "We're going to show up at this. We're going to be there at your church because these people are coming and we're going to show the other side."

Amanda Wray:

What'd he say to that?

Michael Todd:

I mean he got on board. He got so enraged that they were coming to his church, that they had singled out his church to come to.

Amanda Wray:

How did you know that they singled out his church?

Michael Todd:

Oh, it was publicized.

Amanda Wray:

Oh.

Michael Todd:

I think it was even in the Asheville Citizen Times. I mean it was a big deal when these people came to your community because it would get very ... They had to have police protection. People wanted to hurt them, and then they wanted to 00:21:00hurt people. It was a very ugly ... It still happens, it still goes on.

Michael Todd:

If I could think of the name of it you could Google it and it would pop right on up.

Amanda Wray:

Yeah, I'll look-

Michael Todd:

Phelps is his last name, I just can't remember his church. And they have children coming out, holding these signs. You know so that's part of their thing is they show up and bring their kids with them. A lot of hate, a lot of hate.

Amanda Wray:

How did that event go then, when you all showed up at the church?

Michael Todd:

I didn't go.

Amanda Wray:

Oh.

Michael Todd:

I don't know why I didn't go but I did not go, but people did show up to it.

Michael Todd:

Let's see. So yeah, there were lots of stuff like that that went on in Asheville on a pretty regular basis. It was almost always something going on, and sometimes it was, we were bringing in the fun and the joyous and having fun with it and sometimes it was in counter protest like the KKK thing that we talked 00:22:00about last week, that the gay marriage thing.

Michael Todd:

But there was some fun things. I remember I organized this event here, it was at a Gay Pride parade. It was one of our biggest. So we, the fairies, got together and we did a big ritual and it was called the mud people. And so we got together, I'd gone to the Odyssey Clay where they do pottery, got two huge 55 gallon trash cans of clay.

Amanda Wray:

Wow.

Michael Todd:

Old, used clay, mud. So we got together. We met outside the French Broad Co-op. There was probably 25 or 30 of us, and we went into a ritual space. We went around the circle. We may have talked about intentions, and then we started to cover our bodies in mud. The whole purpose was we were going to be as if we came 00:23:00out of the center of the Earth and saw the world for the very first time.

Michael Todd:

So we took all our clothes off, we covered ourselves in mud, then we decorated our private parts and stuff so we wouldn't get arrested, most did. Then we lost our language, and then went around the circle the second time and we introduced ourselves with no language. It would just be a sound or a shape. And then we went into this thing that we'd never seen. We'd never seen cars, we'd never seen dogs, we'd never seen bicycles. And then we came in on the big gay rally, LGBT rally in this, and we kept in character the entire time.

Michael Todd:

So it was interesting. I actually happen to be kind of dating, loosely termed, 00:24:00the guy who's organizing. He's like, "Are the fairies going to be involved?" I'm like, "Yep we're going to be involved." "Whoa! What are you going to do?" "Not going to tell you. You're going to find out." So he's a little nervous about it. They were down at the city county thing and we started at the French Broad Co-op and we started going up through the town. Of course we're interacting with people, we're going up to them, we're touching their hair. We are going to restaurants and looking in and cars we might be afraid of. Dogs, we'd get on all fours and we'd sniff the dogs and they'd sniff us. I mean it was just fun, was just doing this whole thing. And then we went all the way from the French Broad Food Co-op up through town.

Michael Todd:

Also what was happening, and this is what got us in trouble a bit, is people were also wiping butt on all the statues around town and stuff. It wasn't hurting anything but people got upset about it. And then we descended, coming down, into the gay rally. The guy was on the platform-

Amanda Wray:

And where was it?

Michael Todd:

It was at City County Plaza.

Amanda Wray:

Okay.

Michael Todd:

And he saw us coming, and he knew immediately, "And here come the fairies!" And sure we did, and of course we made an entrance. But as we came in we came across, there was all these preaching people at the thing, just condemning. And so we immediately started going, and mimicking the people who were. But we weren't using words, we were just using sounds. But we started mimicking everything that they were doing, and showing the anger and the hate. It was beautiful. It got the front page of the paper because it was just gorgeous. It was these people that had dreads, mud, and they were just reflecting back to these, I'll just use Christians because that's what they were identifying as. We were reflecting back how they looked, and how ridiculous they were, and how they were pointing their fingers and the anger in their face.

Michael Todd:

Then some of us were really like, others were doing everything, we were doing everything they would do except they would use words and we would use sounds. And anyway. And then we left them. Of course it got a big, big crowd, but then we left them and then we rolled on into the parade and we led the parade. I remember the MC was like, "Let the fairies in the front! Let the fairies in the front!" So we went to the front and we led the entire parade down the street.

Michael Todd:

For art, at one point one of us would freeze, and then everybody would freeze and then we would hold position. We would get in these very, you know like touching and doing these wild things, and we would freeze until there was a big long space, and then we would run. It was just fun, so we did fun stuff like that as well.

Amanda Wray:

What year was that?

Michael Todd:

I have no clue.

Amanda Wray:

Okay.

Michael Todd:

I would say that was probably in the 2000's.

Amanda Wray:

Okay.

Michael Todd:

I would guess.

Amanda Wray:

So is secrecy always kind of part of the fairies performance?

Michael Todd:

Secrecy?

Amanda Wray:

No, like, I'm not going to tell you what we're going to do until we do it?

Michael Todd:

Oh, no.

Amanda Wray:

No.

Michael Todd:

No. I wouldn't say that's part of it.

Michael Todd:

There was another one that we did in Atlanta. This one was really wild. We built a big, big dragon. It was probably 40 feet long. And we were actually pushing it. We had it up on grocery carts so we can push it. There's picture of this as well, because there's a picture of me removing the barricade, but I'll get to that.

Michael Todd:

But anyway. There's this big dragon and we, underneath the dragon there were fairies having trays of psilocybin mushrooms and LSD. So we would run under the dragon, dose, and then go out and perform. And so, that we didn't tell, so maybe 00:28:00there's a little secrecy. But we were just going to enter the parade when we were ready.

Michael Todd:

So we had gotten together and we were coming in and entering the parade. This picture of this is actually in one of those RFD magazines. Well there was a barricade, and so I'm going up and I'm removing the barricade. And this cop comes up to me and says, "You can't do that!" I looked at him. I said, "We are fairies. This is how we come into the parade. They expect this of us. They never know when we're coming or what we're going to do, but this what we're doing." And he's like, "You can't do that," as I'm doing it. And of course, I'm moving the thing, someone took the picture, and then we entered the parade. That was a big one.

Michael Todd:

So maybe there's an element of ... but I don't remember it being a big secret.

Amanda Wray:

But you just said you weren't, earlier you weren't going to tell your not quite boyfriend person what you all were doing.

Michael Todd:

Right. There's not a secret to be a secret. If we're quiet around it it's because we don't want someone to shut it down-

Amanda Wray:

Yeah.

Michael Todd:

Before we do it. Sometimes if people hear about stuff and there's an effort to 00:29:00shut it down, so.

Amanda Wray:

And who would those people be, that would shut it down?

Michael Todd:

It could be the gay community. Like, "Oh. We don't want that to happen." It could be authorities, you know, just like the yeah. There was another time we did the mud people. It was at Bele Chere.

Amanda Wray:

Yeah.

Michael Todd:

Do you remember the Bele Chere festivals?

Amanda Wray:

Yeah.

Michael Todd:

And several people got arrested. When they saw the first mud people, person, they knew something was going to happen and they cracked down hard. And yeah there was two or three people arrested. They actually tried to channel us, and I don't know the right words to use so I'm going to use a derogatory word, but we could see that were being channeled. They were coming and forcing us in a certain direction, and we looked down the road and there was a patty wagon down there. They were taking us all to this wagon to be locked up. And of course then 00:30:00we dispersed and then there was some, and as again coupling with the anarchists, there was some blows between some of us and the police.

Michael Todd:

Yeah. They didn't mind fighting. That's not a big thing with us, I don't think, but they didn't mind it. They would jump into it.

Amanda Wray:

Tell me what the anarchist community was like. Was it ... Was there ...

Michael Todd:

Yeah.

Amanda Wray:

LGBT people [crosstalk] in there?

Michael Todd:

Oh yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think a lot of times, and the anarchist people would refuse to identify. They just wouldn't identify, gay, straight, bi, or anything.

Amanda Wray:

They were quite fluid.

Michael Todd:

Yeah. Or if they were they were just like, I'm not accepting any of those labels kind of thing.

Michael Todd:

They were a little bit of a rough crowd. Probably one of my best friends here at 00:31:00the time, he, and he was definitely gay, he gravitated more toward the anarchist community and just became a hard ass anarchist. Started doing tattoos all over his body. Not that that's a sign of anarchists, but that was definitely typical of anarchists. He ended up moving into a community living situation in New Orleans and was actually there when Katrina hit because he ended up back at my house.

Michael Todd:

Actually he called me last week and I have not called him back. Just wanted to check in.

Michael Todd:

Yeah, there was just a rougher edge to it. A lot of anger, really kind of in your face kind of thing. And dirty.

Amanda Wray:

Dirty.

Michael Todd:

I remember they were always dirty. Like, take a bath!

Amanda Wray:

I would've liked that.

Michael Todd:

Yeah. Dirty. But they had big, big, big parties and they were a lot of hard music and ... yeah.

Amanda Wray:

And they did quite a few counter-protest things?

Michael Todd:

Yes.

Amanda Wray:

That was kind of their thing.

Michael Todd:

Yes.

Amanda Wray:

So how did you all get hooked up?

Michael Todd:

I think we just came together. We came together really kind of over the gay marriage thing.

Amanda Wray:

How is the fairies looked at among other gay organizations? So you said that sometimes the fairies could experience some pushback from even the gay community.

Michael Todd:

Yes.

Amanda Wray:

And I'm sure that history has changed, right?

Michael Todd:

And it's fluid, and it's fluid. You know it depends. There are definitely people who do not understand the fairies, and especially some more of your mainstream 00:33:00gay, lesbian folks will think that the fairies are doing a disservice to the community and that we're causing more chaos and more questions. Just like the woman who really questioned me hard, I mean really hard, wouldn't let it go, about the KKK rally and how dare I show up in a one piece bathing suit with high heels on.

Michael Todd:

"We're trying to be respectable gay people and you show up like a fucking freak! You're doing just as much damage to us as the KKK people are. Matter of fact, you're doing more damage to us because you're saying you're one of us but you're a freak!"

Michael Todd:

We would get a big of that. I got their point.

Amanda Wray:

As though your way of being de-legitimizes or something.

Michael Todd:

Right, right, right.

Michael Todd:

I think there's always been a thread of that through that, even the beginning of the fairy movement. Yeah.

Amanda Wray:

Has there been, well, can we go back to the Episcopal church? You said that was kind of a place of real community for you. When did you stop going there?

Michael Todd:

I probably went for maybe a couple years, and then that was it. I think probably when my community started building, when more fairies were coming in, so it might not have even been that long. I think when I felt like I was getting a community here, then that was not-

Amanda Wray:

Kind of replaced that?

Michael Todd:

And it might've even kind of faded away.

Amanda Wray:

Can you talk about, let's see. Can we talk a little bit here and in Florida and 00:35:00even in Tennessee about different types of intersectionality within LGBT people, communities? So people of color for example, and how well do people integrate and work together and those kinds of things.

Michael Todd:

Yeah.

Amanda Wray:

Class as well, like social class. You said a few things about social class that stood out.

Michael Todd:

Yes. I think that social class would probably be the easiest one, just because there isn't really a class thing if you're identifying kind of as fairy, kind of that hippy-ish kind of thing. So people come from all, I mean there were people who were living in Tennessee off trust funds.

Amanda Wray:

Oh nice.

Michael Todd:

Never had to work, you know, so that's how they could be there. There were definitely others who struggle day to day to day. A lot of starving artists. So, and actually there was never really a lot of tension, now that I'm thinking about it. There wasn't tensions between that. I think that was just something.

Michael Todd:

We certainly have folk of color. It's disproportionately white, but not for any particular reason, and that's actually changing somewhat. As I told you, you know, the beginning of the fairies were not acceptable to women. It's funny, I got a copy of the Gazette yesterday in the mail? I think everybody in there was a woman, so it's definitely, that has really taken a shift.

Michael Todd:

Now what I don't know is whether that is unique to Short Mountain, or if that is changing everywhere. My guess is it's changing everywhere, but I would say Short Mountain elevated that because a lot of the other, I won't say a lot. Some of the other Gathering places or communities would not allow women. And actually, 00:37:00that just made me think of something else.

Michael Todd:

Another group that I interfaced with here, the Gay Spirit Movement. And I like to say these were fairies with jobs, but that kind of originated in Atlanta, that's where it's hubbed out. But very connected with the fairies from that spirituality piece. I would say the fairies and the Gay Spirit Movement are very close and actually probably the Gay Spirit Movement definitely reaches more of, if you said there was a class it would be they reach more of the white gay men with jobs. But there is also, in one of the big places where communities in Bakersville, Running Water was the name of that community. It's no longer there. 00:38:00But many of those people and Short Mountain were connected.

Michael Todd:

So when I got here there was a little group of the Gay Spirit Vision folks, and they met regularly up in Mars Hill. I went to their, I went there about three times. They did things very much like we did, talked in circles and shared and blah, blah, blah. But they were very hardcore about women were not allowed, and I remember being there was the last time I went. I spoke out very strongly about that not being a vision that I shared, and that I actually didn't think that was helpful. I got where they were coming from, because in Harry Hay's kind of vision it was more like, let's see what we are like just with us.

Michael Todd:

But I remember when it was my turn to talk to say that if that group were going 00:39:00to continue to be men only that I didn't feel like I could continue to come, and so I didn't because they were very strong about it.

Michael Todd:

But the Radical Fairy people went through that, too. I remember being in a big circle with Harry Hay, and the other people in the group that he was not accepting of in the group were bisexuals. Very, very strong opinions of that. I remember one, it was actually after the March on Washington so that would've been in '93 that Harry Hay came to the Tennessee. And there was probably 100 in the circle and going around and talking. Harry spoke out against allowing bisexuals and whoo, Lord. There was a lot of strong feelings from the bisexuals as well as non-bisexual people.

Michael Todd:

So Short Mountain really paved the way of allowing women and bisexuals into 00:40:00their circles.

Amanda Wray:

And so bisexuals and women threatened this space of-

Michael Todd:

Yes. Yes. But I would say it's way the other way now. Like I said, the Gazette is this little bitty rag publication they send out every six months just at the head of the Gathering, kind of give a little thing to what's going on. I mean almost all the people in there were women.

Amanda Wray:

Have your thoughts on that change? Did you have different thoughts on that at different times?

Michael Todd:

You know, I understood it. I came in on the tail when the stuff was coming. Here's a big difference between the Gay Spirits and Radical Fairies. We'll go into what I said.

Michael Todd:

Gay Spirits? Oh, my God, they can beat a subject to death and intense, intense about it. So there's always something. The Fairies? We're going to have fun with it. We're going to make fun of it. We're going to take it to this absolutely ridiculous, and anything we could do, and so that was like, Gay Spirit very 00:41:00serious, Radical Fairies very not serious.

Michael Todd:

But, still get a lot done. That's kind of the magic of it, because when you go into Radical Fairy space and you're like, how does anything get done? Half the people here are anarchists. There's no rules, except for you can't light a flame in the barn because we don't want to burn it down. You know it's like, how does anything get done? But that's kind of the magic of it. Everything happens. Meals get made. Buildings get built and you have a lot of fun when you're doing it as well. But.

Michael Todd:

So Gay Spirit Vision, I would venture, although I don't know a whole lot about 00:42:00them now, but I would venture to speak that women still do not attend those Gatherings. But we have a strong women's, folks of color. I would say folks of color are definitely, definitely in Gay Spirit Vision. Matter of fact I know. I just went to a thing about, maybe it's, we had a coffee thing. It might be a year ago now, doesn't seem like it should be that long but yeah, there were definitely men of color there. But there's definitely some crossover.

Amanda Wray:

Tell me what the process was like then for Short Mountain to start being more inclusive. You said there was-

Michael Todd:

Talking. It was really a lot of sharing. You know, there were certainly people there who, and I'm sure we lost some people due to it. I don't know now. That 00:43:00wasn't anybody in my circles. I think I came from a very pro-women, and so that's really who I knew. I remember being in circle and talking about it. Never anyone really hateful. It was more, people were afraid we would lose something. That if we varied from that, but I would say that was a huge minority, but that we weren't holding the vision of what we would become.

Michael Todd:

If you remember, you know Harry was, his whole thing was we are neither male nor female. We are a third gender, and people were afraid that we would lose what that mean tot be a third gender. At the same time the AIDS epidemic was happening, and so gender became more prominent as men wanted to appear very 00:44:00masculine and non-sick. So that's when really you would see a lot of hyper-masculinity. It's always been there but it took on kind of a new life of this hyper-masculinity of you wanted to be sure that you didn't look like you were ill.

Amanda Wray:

Within the gay community?

Michael Todd:

Within the gay community.

Amanda Wray:

Did you feel that?

Michael Todd:

No. I would say the fairies as a whole did not embrace that. Now we would take that and maybe do something. I mean the fairies wore dresses and make-up and drag and all that, so no we did not embrace that at all. But I would say that there were probably other ways that we probably tried to come to the same means in a different manner. Because masculinity wasn't a huge thing in the fairies 00:45:00anyway, it was totally that we were just the opposite.

Amanda Wray:

Was there a lot of conversation about AIDS and HIV-

Michael Todd:

Oh yes.

Amanda Wray:

During that time?

Michael Todd:

Oh yes.

Amanda Wray:

Education and sharing and-

Michael Todd:

Yes, and a lot of death.

Amanda Wray:

Did you have rituals around that?

Michael Todd:

Did we what?

Amanda Wray:

Did you have rituals around that?

Michael Todd:

Yes. Yes, that still goes on til this day. We have what we call the Dead Fairy Circle, and it's a place out on one of the ridges, and it's a big circle and it has all types of artifacts over many years now where every Gathering there would be a Dead Fairy Circle ritual in which we would all go out there. There would be some method of getting there, collecting stuff, and then we would get there and we would recognize the fairies that had died from the last Gathering, add something to the circle.

Michael Todd:

I remember one in particular. There was a fairy who'd been there for years and he has Tourette's. You always knew where Randy was because you could hear, "Hick! Hick! Hick!" All over everyone went, "Oh Randy's coming!" So when he died, it was went out there and truthfully did not plan this at all, but we were sitting there and we were thinking of Randy. I actually didn't do it on purpose but I just did one of those ticks and then everybody started doing the ticks and chanting. You know if things were special to a person those would get ... or we would just talk about it. We would just talk about that we knew names and elements. But no that was definitely a prominent piece.

Michael Todd:

We also took big measures so that people who were sick, because it was tough getting in and out, but we would make sure that they could get in and out. And then any of the structural spaces? That's where our sick folks-

Amanda Wray:

Stayed.

Michael Todd:

They would stay in there, so they did not have to camp. The could if they wanted to, but if they were in the stages where camping was just not cool. So no, we definitely had. I mean we have to, I guess we didn't have to embrace it, but at that point I don't think we felt like we had a choice. It was just effecting so many folks.

Michael Todd:

So also, one of the things that's very fairy-ish is morning circle, heart circle. There's morning circle and then there's heart circle. Morning circle we would all come together every morning and pass a talisman. That's when people would talk. Some people would share, some people wouldn't. But then because the Gatherings got so big, because all the morning circles used to be heart circles, 00:48:00but then it got so big that the circle would really, it would go to three or four in the afternoon. So then we started kind of breaking off. If you want to get involved in the heart circle, we'll do that at one o'clock. And then that would be a smaller, intimate, 20, 25 people maybe. And that's where a lot of people talked about struggles they were going through or what was happening or loses or joys and stuff. There would be a lot of sharing. There was a big support for each other through the heart circles.

Amanda Wray:

Could we go back? You kept a little story about a element of workplace discrimination. I wonder if you could talk about that. Have you had other 00:49:00instances where you felt like you were targeted at work or asked to do something in a particular way or ...

Michael Todd:

Actually it's pretty amazing. I've had very much the opposite experience, which I was kind of surprised because I worked for the only community mental health center that was here at the time. I think I told you, I had dreadlocks and I wore sandals to work. I was ended up in the paper, or in the media a lot. As a matter of fact they used to tease me that I would track down the newspapers to try to get in them. But truthfully I would just show up.

Amanda Wray:

Were you always a named person in the newspaper or was it just an image?

Michael Todd:

I was often a named person and sometimes just an image. So I remember a few times I'm like, "Oh I'm going to pay for that." And I would go to work and 00:50:00nothing. I mean sometimes I would have clients come up and, "Ooh I saw you on the news in that dress downtown!" But nothing else would ... and I'm like, surely. I mean I work with children and adolescents. I'm like, certainly a parent's going to come in and complain. Never. Never happened.

Michael Todd:

I remember one where I was definitely in the paper and named, and my age was put in there. It was right after the 9/11 and I was doing this whole thing about drag queens, what was it? Drag queens with cameras, Homeland Security, that was it, Drag Queens for Homeland Security. And I had this little, one of those millimeter cameras, old ones. Didn't work, but I was going around, and this was with the anarchists as well and I was acting like we were filming everything and we were doing Homeland Security. Just way over the top, you know, people eating, 00:51:00filming, blah, blah, blah. And so they took a picture, actually I have a picture of this in my box that I opened up, and they put a picture of me in the paper with my name.

Michael Todd:

I was like, okay let's see what happens here. And so I had a big meeting that next Monday and it was with several of the people from, lots of school officials. It was probably 20 people at this meeting. And Jane McDonald, she was the school person, and she was a hoot herself. So I knew everybody saw this, because it was the front page of the paper. So I walk into the meeting, everybody looks, dead silence. Dead silence. And finally Jane said, this is what she said. Without saying anything else she goes, "The only thing I found really surprising is that you're 40 years old!" Everybody busted out. So it was like everybody was holding this and nobody knew what to do or what to say, and then 00:52:00everybody completely busted up when she said that, and then nothing else was said and we went on with the meeting.

Michael Todd:

Truthfully I never had any issues until I went to A Light of Hope which is where Mark Upright was the CEO who called me in. But that was a Christian born organization and they also had to rely a lot on fundraising and do a lot of churches and a lot of private donors. Community health wasn't like that, so.

Amanda Wray:

Right.

Michael Todd:

So in a sense, I've always been very, it was always, there were many times I was nervous that something was going to happen and nothing.

Amanda Wray:

Do you-

Michael Todd:

In Florida what happened ... I was in the paper a few times in Florida around the ACT UP stuff. I don't remember that being, no I worked for the state, so 00:53:00that was not an issue. What became an issue in Florida, and this is when I started kind of getting my activist wings. I started putting in my office posters of, and I may still have them in my attic, but I remember one in particular it was two women kissing, two men kissing, and then a black man and a white woman kissing, and it said, "Kissing doesn't kill. Government indifference does." And then I had the ACT UP posters. I remember I had a poster of, it was all these famous people through history that weren't necessarily straight, and it said, "Unfortunately," or something like, "History didn't get the," or something, "didn't get the history straight." It was all these stuff.

Michael Todd:

And I had these up in my office. And I remember some colleagues going to the heads and wanting me to take them down and making a big issue of it, but I was 00:54:00not forced to take them down. The response to them was, "If it bothers you don't look in his office."

Amanda Wray:

That's awesome.

Michael Todd:

So I've never really had nothing bit. Now it's interesting, the A Light experience made me nervous and I had not probably been involved in the same way. But I think at the same time I also was getting older. It's kind of interesting. The more you kind of acquire and get, the more you kind of protect that. So it's like, I would probably be much more careful not to be too far out there right now, as public. You know, just because of what you, like how you experienced, your little ordeal. Not that I have a lot, but I have a lot more that I want to protect. And I'm older. Retirement's not going to be that far for me.

Amanda Wray:

Yeah.

Michael Todd:

I don't want to risk getting fired, so I'm probably much more cautious now than 00:55:00I ever was, and I don't do as much so I don't really have to be cautious. I'm just not ...

Amanda Wray:

I want you to talk a little bit about your HIV work in Florida.

Michael Todd:

Yeah.

Amanda Wray:

You said you kind of came as an activist all at the same time. What were you doing there?

Michael Todd:

Yeah, so how that came about was when I first hit the mountain, as I said, and I was like, my life's going to change. When I came back from the Gathering, this is one of the serendipitous type of things. When I came back from the Gathering there was something on my answering machine about working for Tampa AIDS Network.

Amanda Wray:

Oh.

Michael Todd:

And I had just lost my partner. So I was like, "Oh! This is meant to be. Here is someone wanting to inquire about me working for Tampa AIDS Network," so I went down, interviewed. They offered the job, it was going to be open in the 00:56:00satellite office in Polk County, Florida. They hired me, I quit the state and started that. And we were, gosh. The very beginning we were working out of the trunks of our cars.

Amanda Wray:

I was going to say, what was your day to day like?

Michael Todd:

It was locating people who had been identified. There was what was called the Medicaid waiver, and it was basically they were saying, if we could keep people who were dying of AIDS out of nursing homes and provide services in their home it would be a lot cheaper for the state. So it was called a Medicaid waiver.

Michael Todd:

we were working with gay white men who were sick and trying to keep them out of the hospitals, which the hospitals did not want them. I remember going into hospitals and this was back in the day when nurses were afraid of AIDS patients. 00:57:00There were hospitals not wanting people with AIDS in their building, so they were very in some sense welcoming to see us because we were going to try to get them out of the hospitals.

Michael Todd:

The whole dentist thing happened, where that poor girl contracted AIDS from her dentist, so it was a lot of stuff going on. But yeah, we built up this little service arena for people with AIDS.

Michael Todd:

I remember I got one of the most sickening things I ever saw. We were tracking down some migrant workers, and I found one and he was in this little shell of a, 00:58:00you couldn't call it an apartment. It barely would qualify as a room. But he was in the bed, and I at first just noticed the smell. Oh, my God, it was horrible. And he spoke maybe no English or very, very little English. Maybe he was Haitian or something. But what stood out to me was I remember when I went to go talk with him, he was obviously very sick. His lips were all chapped over, but then I could see open wounds and there were maggots in his wounds. And I remember I had to go get a nurse and we had to go ... I don't think he lived much longer at all.

Michael Todd:

That was probably the most profound. But we were definitely going into some profound situations, trying to get people with care. Number one there was a lot 00:59:00of shame. This guy certainly was, I mean who knows what really went on in his life, but he would certainly identify as straight. He was straight and black, a migrant worker. He didn't want anybody to know he had AIDS so he didn't get care, and he was found in the room.

Michael Todd:

So there was a lot of that that went on. The gay folk, men, came together well. I mean they definitely, they came together to support each other. The lesbian community was fucking amazing on how they supported the gay men. The hardest people to work with were the so called straight people with AIDS and the drug users with AIDS. They got it bad. Or they were straight men who slept with other men, and of course that was very hush hush and secret. But now the secret was 01:00:00coming out because if you weren't a known drug addict, how do you have this disease? And so that wall was falling down, and those were the hardest. Those were very difficult situations because families were finding out. They would go to such lengths to not disclose.

Michael Todd:

And there was a lot of sadness. I remember a lot of really young, young people who were dying and they were bitter. I got it, I understood, completely understood. These were kids that were 22 years old that were no bigger around than my pinky and sick. A lot of them were being taken in by other gay men, just as a place to come in and die. But there were some people who had nowhere to go, so John Wall and I opened up ... I actually became the president because of my 01:01:00employment with Tampa AIDS Network, Polk AIDS Support Services, PASS was pretty much a gay man run support organization. I started working with them because I was a paid employee, and we opened up a housing shelter. Actually it started upstairs in my house. Quickly moved it from my house when there was people using IV drugs in my house. I was like, "All right. We got to get this out of my house." So we actually rented the house across the street from me and that was the first AIDS shelter.

Michael Todd:

I actually then wrote a grant to the city of Lakeland, because they were going to do this road build and so they were imminent domain. They were buying all 01:02:00these houses where it was going to expand this highway, but it wasn't going to start for another ten years. So I wrote a grant that if they would give us several of these elements that we could impact people on the street with AIDS, and they gave it to us. And so we did that. And so then that was down the road from me. We had one house and we had one, two, three, four duplexes. Two, four, six, eight, nine places, and then my friend John Wall and I, we ran that.

Amanda Wray:

So these were houses that were slotted for imminent domain, and so they were sitting vacant or?

Michael Todd:

They were sitting vacant. The other thing that got it was they started becoming crack houses. Crack was really big then and they started becoming crack houses. So I made the case that we could get people with AIDS off the street, we could 01:03:00also make use of these houses so that they weren't being used as crack houses if they would give them to us to use. We didn't own them.

Amanda Wray:

Right.

Michael Todd:

They just, they were empty.

Amanda Wray:

So what kinds of things did you do for people?

Michael Todd:

We'd give them housing. Get them medical care. We worked with the local health department. Food, we made sure that there was food. Kept their pantries full. Example here would be Mana Food Bank, I forget what it was called down in Lakeland, Florida but it was a big food bank.

Amanda Wray:

And Loving Food, which is where I work on [inaudible 01:03:48].

Michael Todd:

As a matter of fact, when I came to town that's where I went to get my healthcare was where Loving Food is. It's in that church up on ... Yeah, that's where I got my healthcare.

Amanda Wray:

I was going to ask if you knew them, if you'd ever been there.

Michael Todd:

Yep. Yep. That was the first place I went.

Michael Todd:

So that type of stuff. I don't think we provided any legal stuff.

Amanda Wray:

So you mentioned a lot of the discrimination that HIV patients experienced; job seeking, medical care, that kind of stuff.

Michael Todd:

Yeah.

Amanda Wray:

Did you, while you were part of this Tampa project, did you all have a list of people that were better to go to or not in terms of-

Michael Todd:

There was only a few doctors that would even provide care, so yes there was a very small list. They were the infectious disease. A couple hospitals had a couple infectious disease doctors that would see.

Michael Todd:

But my husband who died, he had to go to Tampa to get treatment. There was no one in Lakeland. There were some people, he couldn't get in with them they were so full. So it was very tight. But part of it, too. He might've been able to get in with someone but this other guy, Mead, I won't say his name anyway but he was 01:05:00known to be progressive in treating people with AIDS. So we would actually travel an hour each way just for him to go see his doctor. Ended up that he was a quack, he wasn't even a real doctor.

Amanda Wray:

Oh!

Michael Todd:

We didn't even find this out until later. He would also fly to Puerto Rico and see people down there because there was no one Puerto Rico who was seeing, well there was some but not enough. So some of these wealthy people would be flying down to Puerto Rico to provide care, so he became a little bit of a legend. And then it found out that he wasn't even a real doctor. He actually had a complete fake license. But he treated a lot of people.

Amanda Wray:

Wow.

Michael Todd:

Yeah. I don't know what happened ... and he actually ended up leaving the country and never coming back. I won't say never, I don't know what happened to him. But yeah, because he saw most of the people that were in my circles because 01:06:00they were the gay white men who were going to get treatment.

Amanda Wray:

I've listened to these oral histories that are in California and it's a lot. I think I mentioned this to you, maybe it's another point. But it's interviews with the nursing staff and doctors who would treat HIV patients.

Amanda Wray:

Just, what was the treatment process like even in the early days?

Michael Todd:

We were a tight group because there wasn't a whole lot of us, and it was I knew them all at Tampa AIDS and at work. But it was a tight group. Thinking back on it now it was like, it was a good group of folk and we just had to be there for each other. I don't remember the stories but I'm sure there are plenty where we would come upon a situation and get on the phone like, let's make this happen.

Amanda Wray:

Figure it out.

Michael Todd:

Let's figure it out. I do remember trying to get people out of the hospital pretty quickly. I think that got better as time went on of course, but we would really work hard to try to get people out. But that was also a time when people were getting pneumonia left and right so there had to be hospitalizations. I remember people coming together to be with them around the clock to make sure that they were taken care of and that ugly signs weren't put on their doors, or that food wasn't left in the hallway in the door. I remember being-

Amanda Wray:

Because dietary would not want to take it in.

Michael Todd:

Exactly. Yeah. So I remember being in tense situations where we really had to push the envelope for things to happen, but yet also not burn your bridge so that you're not allowed in the hospital. There were times that that happened as well.

Amanda Wray:

I guess legally I guess you don't have to. Yeah.

Michael Todd:

Oh that was another big thing. There was a lot of times where partners, as soon as their partner went in the hospital the family would cut the partner off. That was hard. And we would fight on that.

Michael Todd:

I can't remember legal people being involved, but sitting here now I can't imagine how they weren't involved.

Michael Todd:

Yeah. Those were the-

Amanda Wray:

So how many years were you with the Tampa AIDS Project?

Michael Todd:

Three, four, five, something like that. I don't know.

Amanda Wray:

Will you remind me what your husband's name was?

Michael Todd:

Alvin.

Amanda Wray:

I don't think I got that last time.

Michael Todd:

Alvin Austin. No, I think I told you.

Michael Todd:

He was a real cowboy. What I mean by that is, he knew everything about a cow 01:09:00that you needed to know. We could drive out in the country and he'd be like, "Now that's a Holstein and that's used for this and that and another. And that's a this and it's used for this and that and another and this and this and that and duh, duh, duh, duh." Yeah he grew up in Oklahoma on a ranch. Oh, my God there was some country people. I'll tell you about the time we went out to visit his family.

Michael Todd:

True story. We're going to Oklahoma to meet his folk, and we're going to meet his dad. His dad and mom hadn't been married for many years, and his dad was married to a Cherokee woman whom he affectionately called her squaw. That's what he called her, squaw. So we drove up to his dad's place. He lived in a mobile 01:10:00home way out in the middle of a cow pasture with nothing else around. As we drive up, his dad comes around on a horse and he says, "Son, we got 40 loose heads out in the East pasture. Does that boy of yours know how to ride a horse?" And I said, "Yeah I can ride a horse." "Saddle up! We're going to go bring those cows in!" And that's what we did, and that's how I met his dad.

Amanda Wray:

So they were pretty accepting.

Michael Todd:

Yeah. I think at that point Alvin was sick, they knew he was sick, they knew he was dying and so they were trying. It didn't last. Alvin, I think he stayed alive about two years once we were together. And his mom was a nurse, so that's kind of how it unfolded, but he got pretty bad and then he started really having 01:11:00dementia type of side effects. I would come home from work and I couldn't find him, and then I would find him down the street at a grocery store talking to people.

Amanda Wray:

Is that pretty typical?

Michael Todd:

Yeah. I remember he was, this was also when the first Desert Storm War went on? Bobby Lee Bush, I remember him talking about Bobby Lee Bush who was the president, which was President Bush but not a Bobby Lee Bush.

Amanda Wray:

Oh. Yeah.

Michael Todd:

And he would have all these delusions. I don't remember what they were now, but it was getting scary. He was disappearing, and I just couldn't take it. I remember coming home, he'd be covered in vomit and shit. I'd already worked all day in health and human services and come home. Then he would disappear. And his mom wanted him to come back, and so I finally, she and I talked and I said, 01:12:00"Yes. You can come and get him. I need a break." And I knew she could take care of him, and so she did. She came and got him.

Michael Todd:

Bless her heart, her car got stolen the first night she got, I forgot about that until it just came out of my mouth.

Amanda Wray:

That's terrible.

Michael Todd:

But her and his sister, they came and got him and they took him back to Oklahoma. I saw him one more time. He went into ICU up in Oklahoma and I went out there, and he came out of ICU barely but he came out. And that's when I first had the hunch things were going to be different.

Michael Todd:

If you remember we were involved in the Metropolitan Community Church and our pastor, Kay Casey ... Alvin had met with Kay and Kay actually, Kay and I and another woman from the church went out to Oklahoma and we went out there to visit him. Alvin was very clear, very clear. He was like, "I do not want you to 01:13:00give me a funeral like you give other people. I'm not gay. My sins and forgiven and blah, blah, blah." He goes, "I want it stated why I died, what it was, and I want Kay to do the funeral because I know Kay will do it that way. She won't cover things up."

Michael Todd:

So he did die in Oklahoma. I remember I was washing collard greens when I got the call from Kay. And of course the plan was when he died we would all go out there, and as soon as he died, they did let Kay know. What they told her was, "You're not welcome to come out here. We're going to do our own thing and you all cannot come," so we never went. So he did not get the funeral he wanted. He got one of those regular, I was a good Christian boy. No speak of anything, so.

Amanda Wray:

Did you all do a [crosstalk]

Michael Todd:

Of course.

Amanda Wray:

At-

Michael Todd:

No, he was not a part of the fairies. I did not find the fairies until after he died.

Amanda Wray:

After.

Michael Todd:

He we had a big ceremony in Lakeland. I remember when Kay called me and she said, "Alvin's dead, and we are not allowed. We are not welcome." She goes, "But we will do something here," and we did. And we had a ceremony. She said, "We will do it here the way he wanted it," and we did. But that's not what he wanted. He wanted his home community. He wanted to not be ashamed, and he wanted to ... yeah.

Michael Todd:

But you know, I look at that, that's on his family-

Amanda Wray:

Yeah.

Michael Todd:

Because they knew very clear.

Amanda Wray:

Yeah.

Michael Todd:

They were very, very clear. I don't hold anything about that. That's by gones, by gones, by gones.

Amanda Wray:

Oh, go for it.

Amanda Wray:

Okay. The last kind of I don't know. I'm interested in any other stories you want to tell, but I have this last question of, thinking about how the LGBT movement now verses in your experience before ... I'm trying to think about how to frame this. What do you think are some of the issues effecting LGBT communities now that are distinct or different from things that were effecting you when you were coming out and coming up?

Michael Todd:

It really feels like an entirely different world now. There is so much more 01:16:00acceptance. There's other issues that come up, and I don't even know that I can put my finger on them but it's so much more visible now. Through media, through stories, I mean it's almost, and I'm not like this but it's almost like, oh my God are they going to put a gay character into every show? Is it going to be every episode that is everything?

Michael Todd:

And actually I'm glad that it is and that was so behind the shadows.

Amanda Wray:

Invisible.

Michael Todd:

Yes. And then you know, you were very risque if you were going out. And of course I saw every gay movie made because they just weren't that ... there were actually quite a bit, but-

Amanda Wray:

I was going to say, is there one that stands out to you?

Michael Todd:

Torch Song Trilogy, I think, was one of the first ones I saw. My Beautiful Laundrette was another one of the first ones I saw. Yeah because we would all get together and, oh my God there's this gay movie out. Let's all get together and watch it! And now it's like you can't watch anything without it being a subtext of it.

Michael Todd:

So it feels just so incredibly different. I would probably say that I'm kind of out of touch with what the gay community is now. And there's kind of a sense of that that's kind of nice because we don't have to, there's so much support. And not that things don't happen. I mean even the fact that I see so many more transgendered and gay, lesbian folks in the hospital even on the adolescent unit. My practice is primarily on the adolescent unit. It's just that there are 01:18:00new issues coming up, but they're issues that we've probably always dealt with but it's just out, like bullying.

Michael Todd:

Bullying is such a topic now that people understand and address. As I told you last week, I was bullied horribly but I didn't want anybody to know I was bullied in my family because there wouldn't have been support. Now there really is support.

Michael Todd:

Things that we grapple with now at the hospital, we wouldn't have grappled with 20 years ago, and one is preferred name. We have a psychiatrist that we had to go around with because there were adolescents coming in that wanted to be called another name by another gender. The psychiatrist was like, "No," and then you know they came up with some stupid reason because of medication administration 01:19:00we could work past that.

Amanda Wray:

Yeah.

Michael Todd:

And we did. Really quickly that doctor who, I've worked with this doctor ever since I've been in the community who would've had the last word totally did not have the last word. Didn't even hard two words into it, shut down so fast and supported by senior like, "Oh no. That's ridiculous. We will accommodate these people and call them by the name they prefer." He'd be like, "But they're adolescents. They can't-" "No. Shut up." They didn't really say that but it was kind of like, "Shut up. We're not even going to entertain that."

Michael Todd:

We might've had those battles even ten years ago, but that battle would've went on for months, and now it's not even a battle. It's like, no. So it's just so different.

Michael Todd:

I know we talked a little bit about this before. Before I would've thought, okay here comes the big battle between the Christians and the non-Christians, but it's not even that anymore. The Christians are on board with it. They're like, "Oh no. Yeah no there's LGBTQ people and we're going to start ..." Now of course we get individuals-

Amanda Wray:

Right.

Michael Todd:

Obviously. I mean we still get parents who are like, "I can't deal with this. No I'm not going to allow my kid to be called by a different name." But then we have parents on the other extreme as well. "All right I know my kid's 14 and they're transgender. How do I support that? How far do I go in allowing? Do we start pharmaceutical interventions with that or do we wait until my kid's older and they're not 14 and conflicted about everything?" So we're getting those types of questions now.

Amanda Wray:

Do you think healthcare professionals are getting more education about-

Michael Todd:

Yes.

Amanda Wray:

That kind of stuff, too?

Michael Todd:

Yes.

Amanda Wray:

And school and ... [crosstalk]

Michael Todd:

I don't know about school system now, but I would guess so. It's definitely happening in the hospital system. Last year we had a transgender person come and they were there for the whole day just talking to different groups about how to support that, what the language is, how to incorporate that into policy, how to put signage around that people feel safe. You know, little things that I would never look for but somebody ... If I walk into a place and I see a little rainbow flag sticker? I know I'm safe.

Amanda Wray:

Yeah.

Michael Todd:

Yeah. So there's just little, I mean they came to talk to senior leadership of the hospital and then all the way down to the nurses who provide bedside care. So yes, there's a lot. There are learning modules that we have to do every year 01:22:00at the hospital that address diversity and what diversity looks like.

Amanda Wray:

Do you feel like it's just Missions doing a good job or do you think this is national?

Michael Todd:

No I think it's all over the place. Actually when the whole thing came up with the pronouns and stuff, I did some research to see what the Joint Commission who regulates hospitals ... oh my, very strong language. There's just no bones about it. You will do this or we will shut you down kind of thing. It's not even recommendations, it's requirements.

Michael Todd:

Yeah so things that people are dealing with now ... actually that's even dated. Some of the things that could probably come up, and actually I can't speak to 01:23:00this very educationally so I'll just bring it up but I won't go into it. I remember, I don't know if you saw the documentary Southern Comfort? It was about a transgendered female to male who got ovarian cancer but was male and couldn't get treatment because doctors wouldn't treat because that's a man. Men don't have ovarian cancer, not going to treat that, and he died from ovarian cancer. So I think those are the kind of things that, over the last decade we've been dealing with. Okay it's here, how do we roll with that?

Michael Todd:

Or we have a patient that comes to see us pretty regularly who identifies as a male but wants to have a baby. It was interesting. I actually had a nurse, an 01:24:00older nurse who was an engineer in a previous career, he had a hard time because we would be in team meeting and we would bring up this patient and we all would refer to their pronoun of choice, he. This nurse would say, "she". Every time he would say she, everybody would correct him including the provider, the doctor. "You need to use this," and finally he got really angry and he pulled me aside because one of my staff really jumped on him really hard and said, "We are tired of correcting you. You need to get it right and stop doing this," and it embarrassed him so he came to me to say.

Michael Todd:

He's like, "I'm a nurse and I was an engineer. Why is this important? The patient's not in the room, why does it matter?" And I was like, "Because you don't know who else in the room is transgender or has transgendered folks, and it's a thing of respect. You need to respect that and you need to honor it. I know it goes against your thing as a nurse because it's everything," a lot of 01:25:00nurses are black and white. It was just, things aren't being tolerated like they would have been, and things are being challenged as they should be, or in my perspective how they should be.

Amanda Wray:

Do you think that the gay movement is really dealing with what you were talking about when you first came to Asheville, right? That it was a little more difficult to see the community because there were so many different organizations kind of competing as opposed to, we all had to stick together because there was just us.

Amanda Wray:

Do you feel like with young people now, LGBT folks coming up now and out, I don't know, the momentum or a movement seems like, what are they rallying behind?

Michael Todd:

You don't need a movement. You're accepted, so yes. I-

Amanda Wray:

What do you think about that?

Michael Todd:

Yeah, yeah. I think there's other issues that we need to rally around, like 01:26:00climate change and immigration and poverty. I think there are a lot of other causes that we can come together. I do, and this is where I hold onto some of the Harry Hay's stuff, from kind of a spiritual aspect. I really, and maybe it's just because I want to hold onto this, but I believe that we're gay for a reason and there is a calling to it. And the calling is, and that'll lead me to another struggle that I went through, but we don't necessarily have children.

Michael Todd:

We don't necessarily have that responsibility put on us, so we have more time 01:27:00and energy and resources to be the healers that I think we can be called to be. And I think that's why you see such a disproportionate people, LGBT in the human services and healthcare. It's probably why hospitals are so far along than some, maybe.

Amanda Wray:

Maybe.

Michael Todd:

But I think that that's the step I would like to see go. All right, we don't need to fight to be alive any more.

Amanda Wray:

Right.

Michael Todd:

We don't need to fight to be visible any more. Now what do we need to come together to fight for? There's a lot of stuff out there.

Amanda Wray:

Absolutely.

Michael Todd:

Yes. When I said it would lead me to a struggle, that was another little struggle I went when gay people started to marry. And I married twice, but it's 01:28:00... I didn't want to marry Alvin but the truth is Alvin was dying and he wanted to be married. His Christian values pushed him in that direction and I wanted to honor that. But I was already moving into the point of that place of, no I don't think we should marry. I don't think we should. I think we need to not marry so that we have this time to do these other things. We don't need to marry.

Michael Todd:

I've moved off of that obviously. That, yeah, okay. Marry if you want to. Actually I think I've kind of gone into a wider thing as like, people in general don't need to feel like they need to get married. It doesn't have to be a marriage thing. We don't have to have children and-

Amanda Wray:

It's an institution, right?

Michael Todd:

In fact, right.

Amanda Wray:

Regulated by the government and-

Michael Todd:

Exactly. So I don't think that-

Amanda Wray:

Now I sound like an anarchist.

Michael Todd:

Yeah. But I feel that for men and women, that it's like I probably, if I had a wagon to be on now it would be that. I don't need to be coupled. I don't have to be in a relationship to feel like I have a purpose. And that's a big step. Way back when we met last week I was telling you, all I wanted to do was be married and have a little house and duh, duh, duh. Duh, duh, duh. Being married was important because that meant I was important. I was valued, it was worth while. Now I'm like, if I'm never in a relationship again I'm fine. I don't need it.

Amanda Wray:

Is one of those big, you could call it maybe a cultural myth that we're taught to believe, right? People who are married are more stable and happier and just all of these things that come along with that.

Amanda Wray:

That was something that actually you said that there's many of these, what I heard when you were talking about something previously was other cultural myths one of those was, we'll grow out of it, right? We can't be doing things ... We can't give young people hormones for example because they're going to grow out of this desire at some point and whatever.

Amanda Wray:

What kind of other cultural myths about being gay do you think aren't that relevant any more, or that are still relevant? I mean there's certainly still parts of the population that believe in anti-gay camp, right? Like, if I sent my kid off that they'll fix them and those things, right?

Michael Todd:

Yeah.

Amanda Wray:

Are there any other cultural myths that we're combating?

Michael Todd:

I'm sure there are.

Amanda Wray:

Anything else you want to tell me about?

Michael Todd:

Yeah nothing's coming to mind. Myths.

Amanda Wray:

Could you-

Michael Todd:

I keep coming to something about sexuality but I can't find the words to ... I mean I do think some of the problems that we are experiencing now, but it's not unique to LGBT. How to meet people, the whole internet thing. How to be in community. I think those are things that all of society is struggling with right 01:33:0001:32:00now, not specific to LGBT.

Michael Todd:

But I'm sure there are things that are unique and I'm just not thinking of it. Gender seems to be the biggest kind of thing that's on the thing now is the gender fluidity and identifying it. It's come leaps and bounds but I think there's still leaps and bounds that will go with gender expression. Yeah.

Michael Todd:

Just this week at the hospital, I go to a place Loretta's and have lunch sometimes and there's this guy here who-

Amanda Wray:

Is it the sandwich place?

Michael Todd:

Yeah.

Amanda Wray:

I love that place.

Michael Todd:

It is good. He works there and, so it's, I've seen him and ... He's got long hair on one side, completely short on the other side. And then he was at the hospital and I stopped him and said, "Hey. Hey. You're on my stomping grounds," and he was there because his partner was having some procedure done. But he very clearly, male, huge guy. He had a dress on and you know, part of his hair was all fancy, the other side was shaved and he had a dress on, and tights. It's just like, yeah. It's like, I wouldn't have a clue of how he identifies.

Michael Todd:

So there's still, my old brain I'm like, "How do I ..." so I avoid. Like, all right I'm not ... make sure when I'm talking to-

Amanda Wray:

Them.

Michael Todd:

Them that I, yeah. So it's interesting. That's the new, I think, challenges is ...

Amanda Wray:

And I do-

Michael Todd:

And I don't know how far it'll go.

Amanda Wray:

Yeah.

Michael Todd:

It's kind of interesting for me. I'm like, how far will it go when-

Amanda Wray:

Well, what do you think about that?

Michael Todd:

I don't know. It's not new to me.

Amanda Wray:

Yeah.

Michael Todd:

I've always been around it, but it's definitely ... there's definitely language now that I didn't know when we had the transgender person come and speak he put all these graphs up and I'm like, my God. I feel like I knew this stuff and I don't know anything he's talking about, all these terms and what this means and that means. So anyway.

Amanda Wray:

In terms of gender or sexuality?

Michael Todd:

Both. Both. I can't even recall what they are now, but ...

Amanda Wray:

Well.

Michael Todd:

Is that enough for today?

Amanda Wray:

I don't know that I have anything right else on top. Oh, did you know Holly Boswell?

Michael Todd:

Yes.

Amanda Wray:

Did we talk about that?

Michael Todd:

No.

Amanda Wray:

Well let's talk about Holly Boswell if you ...

Michael Todd:

Yeah. How do you know Holly?

Amanda Wray:

We just know that Holly passed away pretty recently and was-

Michael Todd:

I did not know that.

Amanda Wray:

Yeah. And so that they were kind of like a powerhouse here, and so we're just trying to memorialize.

Michael Todd:

The way I met Holly is Holly came to that group that met at the Episcopal church to talk about transgender-

Amanda Wray:

Oh.

Michael Todd:

Way, way, way back. Then Holly sold books, so I was also, knew each other. She sold educational books to educational systems.

Amanda Wray:

About trans identity?

Michael Todd:

No. No, that was just how she made her living.

Amanda Wray:

Oh.

Michael Todd:

Probably sold psychology books to UNCA and-

Amanda Wray:

Gotcha.

Michael Todd:

You know, that kind of stuff. But yeah I knew Holly for, yeah, for probably 20 something years now.

Amanda Wray:

Tell me a story.

Michael Todd:

Well I remember her coming talk to the Episcopalian youth, it wasn't necessarily 01:36:00youth group but it seemed like more young people. Saw Holly at many rallies and marches. I remember Holly, somebody asked her, did she still have her penis and she did. They asked, "How do you deal with that?" And she was like, "It's like a little puppy. It's like my little puppy. It's there and it's cute but it's not who I am. It's just there." For some reason that stuck out in my mind.

Michael Todd:

Yeah I think it's only been a couple years ago since I've seen her, so.

Amanda Wray:

Yeah I think it was in the last year, and I'm not really sure. I don't know anything around-

Michael Todd:

Yeah, she's been around in this community for a long time. The other big powerhouse is Zeke. And it's interesting because I knew Zeke when Zeke was 01:37:00female down in ACT UP, in Florida. I remember there was some people found that out, and they wanted me to tell them, "what name does he go by?" And of course I know but I would never ... because they asked Zeke, "Well what was your former name?" And he said, "That's not important. I don't want to talk about that." And so they knew I knew him so they came and asked me and I was like, "Well he's not going to tell you, I'm not going to tell you."

Amanda Wray:

Yeah.

Michael Todd:

That's ...

Amanda Wray:

Why would that have been important?

Michael Todd:

I don't know. I don't remember why that was important. But I just saw him last week. I think he's adopted, I don't know his partner, they've adopted some kids, or they're at least providing foster care for some kids.

Michael Todd:

Do you know Zeke?

Amanda Wray:

I don't.

Michael Todd:

Okay.

Amanda Wray:

Would he be somebody to interview?

Michael Todd:

He's a powerhouse around here, especially in transition. He's a Greek last name.

Amanda Wray:

Oh, okay.

Michael Todd:

Zeke duh, duh, duh, duh. I could probably find that if I Googled him.

Amanda Wray:

Okay.

Michael Todd:

Yeah, yeah. Definitely Greek. If you meet him you'll know he's Greek right away. Big black beard, black hair.

Amanda Wray:

What other interactions did you have with Holly? [crosstalk] and stuff like that?

Michael Todd:

Purely social. We were not tight, not close. I couldn't tell you where Holly lived.

Amanda Wray:

Oh, okay.

Michael Todd:

Yeah. We would always know each other when we saw each other and ...

Amanda Wray:

All right. Well, I think that-

Michael Todd:

Let's end it.

Amanda Wray:

That has value.