 If you could change anything about your history, what would you change? The loss of so many lives in our community during the plague. I have no friends left that date along with me. That's why I enjoy sharing my past with people who can learn about it because I'm not a sad person. That's beautiful. I intend to be happy. This was from that period. That was on the front page of the Herald examiner. That's me carrying that sign. If I were preparing the protests for the black cat, do you realize the significance of what you were doing? When you're backed into a corner, you have to do something. You have to have somewhere to go. You have to have some belief. It's just like with HIV. You've got to do something. You can't just stand back. This was a candlelight vigil, but it didn't solve the problem. It made other people aware of the problem. You've got to do something. Your inactivity is not what's going to save you or help you. I respect these people who are terrified that they were going to lose their jobs. We just celebrated the 50th anniversary of this. I've got to tell you two little stories. I went up on stage and once again they always asked me to speak. I speak better when I don't have a schedule of what I'm going to say or an outline. When I come from my heart. Up on the stage was a police officer. She was standing there. She was the assistant chief of police of Los Angeles. I had spoken just before her. I went off stage and she was speaking. She says, I want to thank Alexei. I went back up on the stage and she hugged me and kissed me. She was the assistant chief of police, a lesbian. It was so touching. Then I walked off the stage with her and a young man came up on stage to play the guitar. It was entertainment that night. He said, I want to dedicate this to Alexei because if it wasn't for him I couldn't be who I am. He would have been who he was anyway. He played the guitar and I went up there and I said, is it okay if I give you a hug? He was about 14, 15. Can I give you a hug? He said, sure. He gave me a hug and he kissed me on the side of the cheek. I walked down with him and I walked over to the side. He said, could I give you another kiss? I kissed him. All of a sudden there was a seven foot man standing next to me. I looked and I said, yes. He says, I'm his father. I said, thank you for being so supportive of your son. That young man was a transgender. Alexei, when we were preparing for this chat, you mentioned, I'll ask you to hold that up so that people can see it. This was legendary drag queen Jose Julia Sierra who ran for office sometime back in the day. Tell us, who was Jose? Jose did a show every Sunday morning in Sausalito at this one kind of like a nightclub. And it was a drag show and there were other people who entertained and he went on. The thing that sets Jose off, he's passed away now. The thing that sets him off is the fact that he's the first person that I am aware of in the world that ran as an openly gay man. Before Harvey Milk, before all the others. And he didn't succeed but he ran and he was openly gay. Probably one of the real honest politicians. This was for one of the local elections. Yeah, one of the in Sausalito, I believe, or in San Francisco, I'm not sure which. That's fascinating. When you brought that up, I thought that's something to absolutely include today. But swinging back a little bit, I wanted to ask you, when you were preparing for the protest at the Black Cat, which was in February after the raid, you actually distributed, this is what do you call it, a copy of the original flyer. Flyer. And this was police lawlessness, must be stopped for information, there's a phone number. How did the community react to this? Well, as any time you take steps that goes outside of the boundaries, there are some people who are going to object to it. You're putting us out in the view of the public, we're going to have trouble. Well, these people knew what trouble was already. Yeah. Because they were experiencing it in their lives. And they were able to take their troubles and put it behind them to do what was right and what needed to be done. When you're being oppressed in any way, you have to stand up and speak out against it. And if you see anybody else being oppressed, you must speak out against it. It wasn't just in the gay community that I did some work. I marched for black rights. I marched for Latino rights. And on a day of this demonstration, we were supposed to have a sequence of demonstrations because we thought by having the Latino groups demonstrate that day. By us demonstrating, the anti-war people were demonstrating up on the Sunset Strip. And I mentioned the black community of Latino. All of those communities were going to have separate demonstrations as we were having the black cat. We figured that that would pull the police department apart so they couldn't harm us as much as they possibly could if they were all there. Because three months before the demonstration, the anti-war people were up on the Sunset Strip. They got attacked by the sheriff's department, the police, and the highway patrol up there. And they were beaten. That was three months before the demonstration. So we figured if we had all these other groups, the problem they had, the people who represented their groups, was that they didn't know how their own community would react being tied in with a gay community or a gay and lesbian community. They didn't know that. And so the black demonstration didn't come off and neither did the Latino demonstration come off. But ours came off and so did the anti-war demonstration on the same day. Do you feel that today's community, today's LGBTQ community, has the same strength of protest that you had? I think they have the desire and they would like to. I think a couple of years ago, during the proposition to stop marriage in California to change the law, I was up on Lake Avenue with a huge banner saying no on that proposition and all. And I had a black man walk over to me and he said to me, give me one reason I should vote against proposition. I think it was eight. Yeah, proposition eight. And I says, well, 40-something years ago, I marched for your rights. Don't you think it's time that I have all of the rights myself now? And I looked at him and he was looking at me and I saw a tear come down his eye. He says, you got my vote against that proposition eight. He said, and anybody I can talk to. I said, that's all I can ask of you. And that's what it is. Unless you support other people, you can get fragmented. And people who mean harm to everybody will take you apart because it's easier to conquer one group at a time. Someday someone is going to see this video. Some person in a community that we don't even know. Somewhere that they don't have the same benefits that you enjoy here in California. What advice do you have for that nameless, faceless person somewhere? Understand if you do something, something will change. If you do nothing, nothing will change. And there's nothing worse than living in a world that doesn't change. I'd like to thank you for an amazing interview. I would like to thank your husband, David. I'd like to thank everyone here that made this possible. Thank you for having us in your beautiful home, Pasadena, yes. And special thanks to LA Leather Coalition and to the Black Cat. I have had experiences in my life that have changed me. And I've had experiences in my life that have hurt me. All in all, my life has been good because I've been out there and I do what I do. And when you do what you know is right, nothing can affect you in any way but for the better. It's like that young man playing the guitar. It's not about me, but it was about where he could end up. I marched for three years in the cross-gender parade that was in West Hollywood. It's a separate one from the gay pride. And having a person in my own community say to me, aren't you afraid they're going to think you're trance? And I says, why the hell would I care what somebody thinks whether I'm trance or not? It's amazing. It's amazing the people in my life. And once again, thank you, Mother Brian. And if I can leave that feeling with somebody else, I'll do all I can do. We show what kind of strength we have by other communities, the African-American community, the great pickers community, all of these groups. I've marched with them. And some of them have marched with me. But it doesn't matter. What matters is that we marched. And if you sit on your butt and do nothing, don't expect your life to be better. Your life is not who judges you. Your life is that you judge you. And you're happy with what you do because you get to be my age. And if you've done nothing in your life, you're still worthwhile. But you can't be as proud of yourself unless you took that first step. And when I see the young faces and the people who have benefited, not on just what I did, because I'm small to many people, many others. But when I see that they've benefited, I've changed my community. Yes, you have. And that's all I need to know. No one can tell me I was wrong for something or I was right because you can't be right all the time. And when anybody tries to teach you whether it's religious or it's political, hate of another human being, run away from those people. Don't stand there and listen. We all are people and I've seen true bigotry in my life. True bigotry, the real hurtful type. And I've seen just the way good people can be. And it always refreshes me. Thank you.