 Hello everyone and welcome to Inside Leather History of Fireside Chat. I'm Doug O'Keefe. I'm the host and the producer of the chats, which are a program of the Leather Archives and Museum. Today I have the distinct privilege of interviewing Donna Sashay. Donna is Daddy's Leather Empress. The First Lady of San Francisco and Absolute Empress 30 of San Francisco. How are you Donna? Well, that's a lot to read, but it's all true. Thank you. I'm great and happy to be on the program. Thank you for joining. So let's start right at the very beginning. Tell us a little bit about where you're from. Where you grew up, your circumstances. Well, I grew up in the South. I was a child of the South. My parents moved a lot for various job opportunities, but never about the Mason Dixon line. They were very Southern and it was one of those very tight knit strict families. I was over it as soon as I could get away. I got away and I went to college at Vanderbilt and then went from there to Dallas to start some graduate study and then had had enough of school and started into the retail career in a fashion house and major department store work there and then was transferred to New York for a dream job, lived in New York for six or seven years. And then this call came to San Francisco, which I wasn't so thrilled about at first. I don't know. I wasn't as certainly as gay as I am now, but I was still struggling with some things. And coming to San Francisco became the best thing that ever happened to me. I joined into a lifestyle here that has just been rewarding to me in so many different ways. Let's visit that a little bit more. So coming into San Francisco. Tell us about the San Francisco you first experienced. Well I did move here in 1990, so you can imagine that was the peak of a lot of people that were suffering with AIDS and all the repercussions around that, the stigma, the shame, I don't know. When I was in New York, I heard about it, but I was working so hard, you know, in retail, you probably have a life. It was a lot of work and I didn't really acknowledge or even contribute to any of the AIDS organizations. I heard about them, but I wasn't involved. When I moved to San Francisco, I found that a lot of people said, oh, you moved here too late. It's all over. It's been terrible. But at the time I moved here, I thought it was pretty great. There were so many choices. There were so many places to go, so many ways to be gay, which I enjoyed. And I gradually came to love it like no other city that I ever lived in. And I lived in quite a few. So although it took a while to get used to it, I had to give up New York and just embroiled myself in San Francisco. And now I've made it home. Well, tell me a little bit more about the opportunities and things that you just mentioned. Well, when I first moved to San Francisco, when you have a home office in New York and you're on the other coast, I used to call with great ideas early in the morning. I thought early in the morning. And I'd say, oh, my goodness, I have something to tell you about. And they'd say, we've been up for three hours. What do you want? You know, and I really felt like we're such a branch store, such a so out there. I had to get used to that. And I had to get used to the fact that if the city was going to be my home, I had to get out there a little bit more. And I was working just like I was working in New York. What's what's the use of that? So I canceled my New York Times subscription and I gave that up. I joined the gay men's chorus here, the first on first course in the country in the world that had the word gay in it. And then I started volunteering for one of the AIDS organizations. And things turned around very quickly after that because you become a part of the fabric of the city. There were many volunteer opportunities I took and leadership opportunities that began to come my way. Tell us a little bit more about those. Well, the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, of course, was like a big part of it because I love to sing and I'd sung in different choruses, maybe choirs more than choruses. But once you once I got away from the whole religious thing, I didn't have the opportunity to sing as much. So I saw this chorus and I thought, you know, I said to myself when I moved here, I was going to embrace that part of my self, my gayness, my characteristics that were kind of beaten down as a child. Let me embrace it fully and join this chorus that has the name right in there. I joined a chorus of maybe 200 voices, all kinds of people, rich, poor, black, white, careers, students. And I found that there again, there were so many ways to be gay. And I could indulge in all those and maybe piece them together and find my way of being gay. I went to a retreat for the gay men's chorus and tried drag for the first time in public. I guess maybe we've all danced in front of a mirror with a towel on our head. But this was in public. I did it down a summer number and because she was black and I was white, I named myself Donna Winter. I thought that was really creative. That was my name until I left the stage. I heard somebody say, look at that girl's sashay. And I said, well, that's a much better name. And I became Donna's sashay. So forever, the chorus will have a big part of my life because it gave me my name really and gave me the confidence to do that number, not only that, but then to begin to sing live and to begin to be my own kind of drag queen as well as my own kind of gay person. What number did you do? What song did you do? Oh, I can't remember. It was a very popular one. I remember at one point she, you know, when they edit them, they kind of cross your own voice over your own voice. I thought, well, how am I going to do that from lip syncing because I was lip syncing at the time. So I did a turn so my voice, my lips wouldn't be seen. I thought it was so, so smart. When we look back at these things, it's so silly, but that was the beginning. So tell me more about the things you learned from gay men's chorus. What other volunteer opportunities and educational things came along? Well, it was a, it was such a distinct pleasure and kind of in some ways challenging to meet all these different kinds of gay people. I mean, my life in New York with being gay was really working harder than the weeks. And during the weekend going to some gay bars and flying back to the apartment getting ready to work again. It was kind of a mayhem, but there during rehearsals and during breaks and during these retreats you really got to know some people and their life stories and found that yours wasn't that unique or maybe theirs was something you never thought about. It was just a whole wealth of life experiences I didn't expect to be ever exposed to. And yet we created music together. I think that's got to have been a theme throughout my life that as different as we all may be there's some common themes. If we can hang on to those, they will really learn a lot. I remember Harvey Milk when he was really struggling to be elected. He said, you know, I'm never gonna get elected just from gay votes. I've got to reach out the labor unions, the elderly, the other people that have distinct needs and maybe are being overlooked. We need to unite and unite together and find common threads. And that's been a theme for me and a challenge that I've given to the community every time there are common threads and we need to look for them and find power in them. Well, what kind of common threads do you try to find? Well, I think that we all, they come down to the thing, you know we all want to be loved, whatever that means. I think some people want physical love. Some people want recognition. Some people want adulation, whatever it might be. But we all wanna be, we all wanna count. I think it's more important to me and be heard and really heard, listened to, looked at and heard. And when you, in the gay community, sometimes we splinter ourselves because we forget that there are differences that can be relished and celebrated rather than put down. And as I began to be part of the Imperial Court was my first involvement really in the drag world. And I found there were lots of different kind of Imperial people too. Some took it very seriously and some took it with a lot of fun. And, but we all raised money. That was a big common theme. We all raised money for charity, for organizations that we believed in to help people that were struggling with, first of all AIDS and then some of the stigma that was attached to it and then getting the expensive drugs in the right hands and all kinds of other factors. Let's come back to the game in for us first because that was so definitive for you. I'd like to explore just a little bit more. You mentioned that the people you met taught you a lot about differences in life and different experiences. For example, what were some of those? Well, my experience with gay people, especially in my short experience in New York, and I guess I'd come out in Dallas but it was a very limited way. So you have a social circle and that's all you know and that's all the kinds of people you know. With the course you're kind of exposed to so much more and I would have dinner sometimes with people that had had marvelous careers and it met so many wonderful people and really had been leaders in the gay rights movement. Then I'd meet other people that were just fed up with the whole thing, didn't want anything to do with it. And then people that were parts of the Pride committee that ran the parade and the celebration. And then there were people that had a salary and a career in an AIDS organization. There were actually so many organizations that were jobs to be had in that field. And then there were a lot of people I met that were towards the end of their lives. I'd never done, had that experience with people my age that were trying to wrap things up, that were selling their life insurance policies that were hanging under their apartment another month because they thought maybe they'd be here another month. But it's just hard things to deal with. I guess not just a gay experience but a wider experience of life in general that I've been somehow sheltered from. How did you learn to cope with hearing things like that? Well, when I mentioned that, I first got here, there were a couple of people that said, oh, Donnie, you're too late, you missed the best of it. There used to be so many bars and we used to have sex everywhere. It was just great and everything. And I said, well, I don't know about that but I think it's pretty good now. I mean, I've never seen so much that is available in such a menu of opportunities. And as the AIDS crisis became for me personally as I began to lose friends more personal, it was a hard thing to deal with it. But at the same time, I saw people rallying. We give, in historic we give a lot of credit to women that were not initially affected so much by the disease but yet were some of the first to put hands on and go see people, visit people that nobody else would visit. I tried to learn from them and say, what's the science in this? Can I touch somebody and get it? Basically no. So I could go to a hospital. I could be a volunteer with an organization that helped people get their groceries or get help and get food to their house or something, it was not, it got rid of a lot of that fear even in me. Wow, that's very strong. I think that that must have been very life-changing for you. I think so. I mean, I think that as I really don't understand the whole birth and development of Donna in me, you know, to help people, I don't put drag on, I let it out. You know, there was always this character in here. And the gaming scores nurtured it and encouraged it. The Imperial Court awarded it and maybe an Empress and all these different things. So you kind of follow that. I mean, if you're a kid and you sing and your mother says, oh, you sing well, will you sing more? If you're a kid and you throw a ball and your father says, oh, you throw well, you throw the ball more. Well, I was encouraged in this personality and then kind of found a comfort in it and a power in it. And if I could help in some of these things that I was seeing happening that people were, you know, just being left out because of AIDS and then maybe because of their families just not liking them, but they were doing how they were pursuing their lives. If we could find a new family, create a new family, then there was power in drag. When you get up on stage and you see people, all the eyes looking at you and you know, the silly little dollar tips or whatever, it all adds up. We raised money in San Francisco, a dollar at a time and it all adds up. And we have many organizations that thrive on those little fundraisers. Let's go back to your very beginnings in drag. What was your draw to that? Well, I don't know. I think part of it was a kickback from being criticized. I mean, I've always lived with, and I don't know why, but I've always been a more feminine person. My mannerism is very feminine. My voice is feminine. I was attracted to softer things and I was punished for it pretty cruelly as a kid from my father. And you know, I had two brothers and one was really much more masculine and thought I was a loser and everything. So then you go to school and continues and at some point you either isolate and which is what I did, I think in school, but then in San Francisco, there was no need to isolate anymore. People kind of liked it. Oh, look at her. You know, not like, look at her, but look at her. You know, and it was, there was a power in that and I began to feel the power and embrace it. I mean, when I think that one of the things I was most criticized for as a kid was the way I walked. And I remember sometimes like holding my hips with my hands to make them quit walking that way or what was I doing wrong? I didn't know why. But then now as a personality in San Francisco by very name includes the walk that I was criticized for down at Donna Sachet, you know. Tell us how it evolved for you. Were you mentored? That's interesting, good question. I think in the drag world today because of a lot of things we see, they're drag mothers, they're even families like on poach, you know, that nurture you and help you out. I don't think that I really had that. I had a set of friends that encouraged me early on and helped me and, you know, I had one wig for two years. But it was like, oh, I have to have a multiple wig. I didn't realize. And then I love the color red. So all my dresses were red. And somebody said, is that your signature color? And I looked at my closet and thought, well, there's four dress, I guess so. I mean, I was such a beginner, but you take it step by step. And if you're discouraged, you probably put it away or put it in a very private place. If you're encouraged as I was, it gets bigger and bigger. And there was a closet and then there were long dresses, short dresses. It kind of takes over. So you have to manage it. And I think that is what I'm still trying to do. Tell us about that learning process. How did you know what kinds of dresses, where to acquire these items? How to do makeup? Well, I think we're all educated now by RuPaul's Drag Race and into a certain kind of drag that is so self-created. I mean, those girls amazed me. They, I can't sew a button on. I sewed on at Paul's right up. I'm not a seamstress. I'm not a hairstylist. I, you know, have people help me with things or I get them ready made and I can fluff them up or something. So I did watch a lot of old black and white movies and I love the powerful women in black and white movies like, you know, John Crawford or Betty Davis or heroic women that kind of triumphed over a lot of things. I recently wrote an article about a great birthday I had when people celebrated me in a very outlandish way. And I compared it to the pocket full of miracles. I think it's the name of the movie, a black and white movie where Betty Davis is this poor little woman on the street and her daughter's getting married and she has to come put on all the heirs of being somebody because she wants her daughter to be proud of her. And the mayor comes to her birthday and all this stuff. And I, and I'm thinking to myself, you know, it, it, those movies give you hope and give you a imagination of creative way to overcome some things. And that, so they inspired me in the dress and the manner and all of that. So that was a big part of it. It must be a very big financial investment. Well, I agree. It can be, and it depends on what's important to you. I don't know. Having come from a fashion and retail background, I did have a sense of women's fashion because I was always in the women's part of the, of the store. So I know how you can get away with a lot with a little. I mean, Sharon Stone was famous for wearing a gap T-shirt with a nascar de la range of skirt, you know, there's a way to do it. And if you have a sense of style, you can. So you can keep the expenses somewhat minimized, but there are important events that I couldn't be more delighted to have something that really says, has a statement. And as I got to be well-known to, I've had some very generous people that helped me to look as good as I can. I have a dear friend who just gave me a beautiful set of, you know, it's a crown necklace earrings. I'm a whole set. And when I put it on, I look in the mirror, I think, whoa, who's wearing what? I mean, it's, it just, and that's true love that he wants me to look the best I can. And there's nothing in it for him. And, you know, I have, it's not so popular for coats now, but I mean, I have a number of fur coats that I would never have the money to spend on them. But if people have a mother who passes away and they look in the closet, what am I going to do with this? Give it to Goodwill. Oh, Donna might wear it. Well, yeah, I might. So I'm happy to say I accept gifts and have accepted a lot of wonderful contributions from people that just believe in me somehow. You mentioned having a sense of style. Is that something that's innate or can that be developed? Oh, I think I'll probably upset some people, but I do think sense of style is something you find inside yourself. And you can have a little tiny bit of innate style and work with it and maybe enlarge it and everything. But I think you have to have some knack for it to begin with. I think you can obviously see when people say, oh, I want to be like a Kardashian or something you can try and imitate that. It looks very imitative. So I think there's a certain knack to that. I don't know where it comes from. I don't know that my family had any of that. Maybe my grandparents on my mother's side. I remember there was a picture of them walking down the street in New York and my grandfather had a hat and a cigarette. My grandmother had the gloves and everything. I mean, it's just like a black and white movie. Tell me more about adopting your drag name. I know you've mentioned it a little bit, but let's really clarify how that came around. Well, everybody when they start, one of the first questions, other drag queens especially will ask you, what's your name? What's your name? As you're making up, what's your name gonna be? And I never really thought about it because I wasn't doing it as a separate character. It was just expressing a part of me. And so I guess that was when the gay men's chorus with a performance on stage had to introduce you somehow. And it was really last minute. And I thought Donna Sashay, I mean, Donna Winter, Donna Summer, it just seemed to make some sense to me. Not that I really loved it, but where did Donna come from? Oh, from Donna Summer. Anyway, it was just silly. But then leaving the stage and hearing somebody say, look at her Sashay. And to this day, a lot of members of the chorus say, I was the one that said that and they don't want to claim that. But I don't know who it was really. I just heard somebody say it and it made a lot of sense. And again, coming back to claiming something, you know, the pink triangle, for instance, we reclaimed that and turned it into a positive symbol of rallying point for us. In San Francisco, we do this pink triangle up on the top of Twin Peaks, this big hill that you can see from all over. And now it's lit at night. And for a month of June, you see it up there. Well, that is really taking a painful symbol and turning it into power. Well, I think that painful memory of being teased as for the way I walked has been something I reclaimed and turned it into my name and a foundation of my existence. Yeah, I hear that from a lot of people and I think you hit the nail on the head. You've taken that power back. And I don't know that sometimes in interviews like this, I mean, in a way, I feel like I'm being treated as a pioneer or some kind of historian and say, I've been around a while, but I do not consider myself one of those fighting pioneers that accomplished so much. I picked up on a lot of the work that people had already started. I'm fortunate to have known Jose Staria who was the founder of the Imperial Court, but also the first openly gay person to run for political office in the United States. Can you believe that? In the 60s, he just said, I want to run for office and it's gonna be part of my campaign, I'm gay. Anybody having gay issues? It's just hilarious that when you think back to that. But knowing him and seeing his courage and his boldness, anything I do pales by comparison. I mean, he was in an era when it was all much more revolutionary. My little puppy, sorry. Or what office did he run? Supervisor of the city. So they're 10, at the time that they were voting at large. And so the top 10 vote getters became supervisors. And now we've gone to areas and we have supervisor in districts and it makes it a little bit different. If he was doing that today, I bet he would have won. Let's take a step over and look at that just a little bit more because San Francisco has always been, probably always will be, a mecca for the LGBTQ plus, plus, plus, plus, plus community. Why do you think so? Well, I want to thank you all. First of all, for saying that because I have a firm believer in that. I've said for years, there's something in the water or the air here. I'm gonna keep drinking it and breathing it because San Francisco is giving birth to so many things. The first gay chorus that had the name in it, the band that we were the first to open the gay band, the gay game started here. I mean, the first gay newspaper, the latter that Phyllis Lyon had now Martin created, just so many things, it's incredible. And why it is, I think, one key thing is a preponderance of people that are gay or queer, that came together here. Whether it was after World War II when so many people were coming back and from being released for the military and they were here on this coast because it was a coastal city, maybe that was it. Part of it being known for the hippie movement and that freedom that it encouraged, living your own truth. All those things came together, the preponderance of people, seven people can't do it. And there became 70 and 7,000 and 70,000. And when Jose got those 6,000 votes when he ran for supervisor and still didn't win, it made everybody sit up and pay attention to say, there's a force here to be reckoned with. My good friend, Mark Leno, who in his last political office was a state senator here in California. I loved watching his progress and he stood on the shoulders of Jose Sariah in a modern way and one office. And he's one that declared me the first lady of the city to see what we can accomplish now only because of what went before is really a powerful thing. What did Jose do in the future after that election? Jose had a lot of things. He was involved in forming, sir, one of the early organizations he was involved in, the religious community coming to terms with gay people, glide memorials, a big church here that he had relationships with and with Cecil Williams, who was the reverend there. And he also took it to a new level with the Imperial court because the game that we were playing here of emperor and empress and dressing up, but at the same time being elected by the community and serving the community as royalty sort of does, it was so popular that other cities wanted to do it. So he started traveling and now we have 70 courts across the United States, Canada, Mexico. It's the oldest continuously operating nonprofit gay organization in the world. And it's so much fun to go to Boise, Idaho and watch their coordination and be from San Francisco. You're the founding mother court, you know what I mean? It's just kind of a great tradition to continue. Let's come back to you though for a few minutes and then we'll visit with that a little bit more. You've said that you stand on the shoulders of other people and that you really weren't a pioneer in this. However, I heard of you long before we were introduced and I know that your work is the stuff of legend. So tell us about, excuse me, tell us about some of the accomplishments you've had, some of the pride brunches, the fulsome pre-parade brunch and political fundraisers. How did you achieve all of that? Well, that's first of all, very generous. I didn't know you'd heard about me before. I thought somebody gave you my name on a slip of paper. But you know, it's hard, you know, personally, it's hard to beat your own drum and sing your own praises and I don't really want to do that. I do want to say that I've been given a lot of opportunities. Once you are known as like when I, you know, that thing you mentioned earlier, the leather Empress. I mean, there were some girls who were very envious of this best when I got it, you know. But it was a bar and some leather guys that got together and said, Don has been so involved in our community years after I was Empress, let's give her that. Well, you know, when you're given that, what are you going to do with it? I started having great friendships within the leather community, going to fundraisers, MCing contests and supporting people that were running for contests, the bare chest calendar we had here and also things. And so I naturally began to have a brunch at my house before the fulsome street bear. And it grew and grew. Again, I was lucky that I had a place I could entertain. It was a big house with a patio and we could do, at the end, we had 300 people coming through during those brunches. It was one of the biggest parties we did. So that maybe counted in history as a accomplishment or something I did, but I only did it because I had the place, I had the contacts, I had the love of that community and those people and it kind of grew. And I've done a cabaret show at the holidays that I started before I was even Empress because I love music and I thought the holidays are a lonely time for a lot of people and they don't mean much to me in a Christian way, but they do mean the sense of generosity and being nice to people. Sometimes you give more during that period of time than ever before. So I formed a cabaret and 27 years later, we're still doing it every December and now it's produced by somebody for me and taken that burden away from me. So again, opportunities of course helped me, encouraged me saying I loved music and I wanted to do something with the holidays. Some of them you just stumble into and only because other people had done it or opened some doors for me. So I guess that wraps it up, I don't know. What would be some of those that you've done? And I'm sorry, what? I don't understand the question, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, you said some of them you literally just stumbled in because an opportunity came along. For example, we're kind of like the leather budge, you know, I wanted to get people together and I think we were getting together before, you know, to get all ready and go to the fair together. And then somebody said, oh, let's fix eggs or let's do this and it just kind of grew. It's the germ of an idea that's presented something and the cabaret at the holidays, it was for friends and we did it in sometimes in small bars and then it became something. We do it here now at Feinsteins at the Nico, you know, it's named after Michael Feinstein who opened that room. So what a great musical connection and it really elevated the event. I do a brunch for Pride weekend when we do the parade with Gary Virginia. Now he was Mr. San Francisco Leather when I was Empress and we just were kind of thrown together because we're both leaders in the community and we MC things together. We, if nothing else just walked into a party and added something to it, you know, and we started doing this brunch because we had an organization we both believed in that was helping people, TRC and we didn't see them doing a lot of community fundraising. So we did that the morning before the parade and it was small, it was a little restaurant that we had a contact with and it grew to the point where this is our 24th one this year. It'll be at the Western St. Francis in Union Square, you know, huge hotel. And when we walk in that ballroom, sometimes I got scared. I'm like, you know, what does this come to? But we're ready. We have all kinds of supporters and, you know what? When you think about, again, I don't wanna sing my praises. I just think the small events that I started with and now Wells Fargo is the primary sponsor for the Pride brunch. How can that be? But it says a lot about San Francisco. Yes. But building on to some of what you've been alluding in a lot of this, you've said that you're a very private person behind a very public personality. What do you mean? Well, yeah, I kind of shared that with you before we even went on the air that I think everybody, so many people tend to think of public figures as part of their possession. You know, it's like, oh, she's coming. Well, she's coming, I wanna meet her. I wanna have, you know, and I can't even imagine how people like Madonna or Sherry deal with it because, you know, how do you really know who your friends are? Cause always everybody's like, give me all this praise. So I try to keep a handful, maybe five friends that are truly honest with me and will say, you know, I know you like that song, Donna, but we've heard it enough. Who would tell me that? They would, you know, or that outfit. Okay, we're seeing that, you know, or have you thought about this cause that you haven't given time to? Just true friends that really want the best for me. And that's the private part of me. But the public part is the creation this is a creation, Donna's actually has a creation. And I love using that creation for the power that it has. If I could get up on a stage and say, this cause means something to me, would you please get money and they give? Or if I can send an email out and saying, this is an important election, you need to make sure we consider this factor and they respond, that's a gift that I have to use responsibly. Okay, but do you inhabit drag or do you wear drag? I before, as I said before, I think I let it out. I think it's always in here. When I sometimes go to the Castro, you know, down into the neighborhood and I'm walking around doing my banking, going to the post office or something. And I'm in, you know, a beat up sweatshirt and jeans or something until I open my mouth. Nobody even knows who I am to this day, 25, 30 years later. But my mouth, my voice is pretty distinctive. And that's kind of fun to have that anonymity within your own world. You know, I've never used it in a bad way, but you can kind of just see the feeling of the community, the pulse of your finger on the pulse of the community. But yeah, the struggle is sometimes when you're out as Donna and I'm fully engaged in an event or something and somebody comes up and says, you don't remember me, do you? Okay, here we go. What is that about? And I think that's the typical thing of where they think, because you're public, they own a part of you that I mean, I should remember them, well, I don't know why should I? And I try to be gentle with it and say, how long has it been? And it has been a while, you know, try to be nice. One time somebody got me to the point of just, I was gonna pull my hair out and I, or take it off, but I said to them, okay, are you trying to embarrass me because you are? And then they kind of melted into a puddle. I mean, I hate to do that, but people just don't understand the difference in a private and a public life. And I value those friends even more that are part of that private life because they can go out with me and see what happens and sometimes rescue me, you know, in a situation like that. So how, what percentage would you go out as Donna Sashay versus your private self? If you just wanted to walk down the street and have a beer? Well, you know, COVID of course, has just put a big impact on that. For the last two years, my life has been considerably different. I remember in March of 2020, when the mayor said, we're gonna shelter in place. And I said, what does that phrase even mean? It sounded like, you know, going camping or something. I don't know, shelter in place. So I went that week from five engagements the previous week to none. I mean, the phone started ringing, everything was canceled. And we didn't even know about virtual events yet. Everything was just canceled. Then we started doing virtual and I started doing some video work as much as I could, self-taught and all that. But it was quite an impact. But before COVID, that was about average, five nights a week out, you know, if not responsible for an event, having told people I would be there and then that becomes a responsibility and I would show up and talk with a friend or, you know, listen to some people, maybe have a chance to speak on the mic for a moment. But people look for leadership. And I think if you were put in a leadership position, they look to you and it's a huge responsibility. You wanna really give them what they want, but at the same time, direct their attention to things you really believe in because you've been given that position. It's a thin line to draw sometimes, but I like being out as Donna. I like what I can do as Donna. And the other part is more self-nourishing for those sample of friends that I have. What draws people to you? You're asking such important, but difficult questions. If I knew, maybe I would do more of it. I don't know, I think that when I think about it seriously, there's so many people that work and go home and come get up and work and go home. It's such a pattern, it's such a boring pattern, frankly. Maybe they don't realize it's boring, but it's a habit, it's a drudgery. And I think that's part of the attraction of reality television programs because it's like, that's reality. Well, that's a creative reality. We all know that now, scripted and crazy and everything. But it gives them a chance to live outside of themselves. Maybe those black and white films were doing that to me. And then I found a way to actually embody it. And so if I can go out and people can say, oh, she's here, she just came in. And if that can lift the room a little bit or excite people a little bit more, and maybe something I say is repeated somewhere in the press or on somebody's lips, that is wonderful. And I don't know what it is that attracts them, but I think it's a pattern that is repeated and repeated. And so it becomes a part of your power, a part of your personality and a bigger responsibility how to use it properly. I agree. Yes. I know so many people in the leather community that were mystified me initially, just to touch on that a little bit. I don't know if you knew Alan Selby, but Mr. S. Leather, which is a big thing here, that's the S and Mr. S, it was Alan Selby who started that leather company. And he had a British accent and he was just a charming gentleman, but he was very much a leader in the leather community. My conversations with him sometimes would be off to the side and he'd say, well, where'd you get this or what happened last night? And then he'd start going into, well, I had a three-way the other night, like, oh, and I'm thinking, wait a minute. And it taught me about his private and public life. And he had both of those and he chose to include those he could in that. And I admired him so much. I admired Phillip Turner, I admired Bob Brunson, I admired so many people in the leather community, Lenny Broberg, that fascinated me that they were able to balance that. And if you talk to them, I think you'd find the same thing, that there's a public and a private life and not easy to negotiate sometimes, but you pay a certain price to have one and not the other. I'm sure you probably have the same thing. Are you well known in Chicago and elsewhere? I think that's fine, I don't really know. It's hard to say, yeah, so. But what have been a few of your pinch-me moments? Oh, you used my phrase. I don't know who invented that phrase. I told it one time, I've told it to a couple of people and they are fascinated by it. Nicole Murray Ramirez is the head of the Imperial Court system now after Jose's death. Was entrusted with the whole thing, has grown it exponentially. And she's a good friend and I gave her that phrase and she's used it several times since then because we all have those, whether it's a huge thing or just a surprise in your life. And to me, a pinch-me moment is when you're in the midst of it and you just kind of look around and say, is this really happening? When I sang the National Anthem for the Giants at their big ballpark, I mean, historically, it was the first drag persona to sing the National Anthem for a Major League team. I was told that in radio programs and all this stuff across. I mean, think of the pressure. And then I walked out on that field and it's absolutely quiet and I have a microphone and I just got to start singing. That was the scary moment, but also one of those pinch-me moments, like I'm about to do it. And I did it and a couple of people teased me afterwards. They said, when you finish, you were skipped off the field. I said, yes, I probably did. I was so happy to have it over. But what a moment that was. And just some of the awards and recognition. I mean, Mark Leno being elected to that high of an office, a state senator, and yet he still has time to converse with me and send me flowers for a birthday. And so I mean, that's pinch-me to know somebody like that. And some of the celebrities I've crossed paths with that you always want your celebrities in your mind to be all that they are. And I don't know if you've met many or you have any kind of like pop icons that you admire, but you're like Rita Marino who lives locally in Palo Alto, I think. I've gotten to know her a little over the years and she's not very generous personally when she meets people. She's like, okay, I'm done. Yet she's taking time to get to know me. And I always feel like she's deferential to me and nice to me and in a big ballroom one time, I had a friend of mine that was dying to meet her. And I said, well, I'll see if I can do it. And we crossed over near her table and I said, no, that's, we don't rush the table. We've just kind of go over, maybe she'll notice. And sure enough, she signaled me to come over and I brought my friend with me and she got to meet Rita Marino. It was just those kinds of things are just really special that girl that I took, you know, might have never met her. And yet she'll always remember, I did meet her and my friend Donna made it happen. What a moment. Wow, that's beautiful, really. When we prepared for this interview, you told me you had three main philosophies that define your world, one of them being love of life. Tell us about that and the other two. Well, I think you're asking before what attracts people to me. Maybe that's one of the things that I do think I convey a genuine love of life. I mean, part of it is in contrast to my childhood, my family life as I grew up, it was, sorry, that puppy's puppy, yeah. It was, you know, looking back on a torturous and I don't wanna belabor that, but by having the life I have now, I'm more joyful about it and I really do count the small things in a big way. And I live in an incredible city and have incredible opportunities. And I can pick the phone up and talk to a lot of people that would take a long time for other people to get through to. That's a great privilege. And so that love of life, when I go out, I take it with me. I'll tell you a quick story. The first time I ever was invited to be in a big drag show, it was at a bar and let's say it was an eight o'clock show. Well, I got there at 730 because I wanted to make sure I was ready. Everything was sitting in the bar, having a drink, you know, talking to people. And here came four other drag queens with their rolling luggage. They rolled through the bar all the way back, never spoke to anybody and got started getting ready. I thought, well, I thought this was supposed to be fun. I just didn't get it. And I, in hindsight, I have seen that continue. A lot of times people have a mission. They come to entertain. That's all they want to do. I want to be with people. And I want to spread some joy and sing something that's going to lift them up or make them laugh. And it's a different philosophy. And I think that love of life is contagious when you take it out. So that's one of the, I guess, precepts of my life. Why are you the first lady of San Francisco? We'd have to ask Mark Leno that. He loved the fact that somewhere along the line, I got known as the person that would show up at everything. And people could laugh at that. Somebody said one time, Donna would cut the ribbon of a garage door opening if they had one, because every one of those is special. You know, when a new laundromat, I remember open one time, they called me out of blue. I didn't know anybody for that laundromat. They wanted me to cut the ribbon for the laundromat. Well, I was there, sure. I mean, and bars when they have anniversaries and stuff like that, it's important to that person and that bar and the people that are there. Everything's important. The farmer's market here in the Castro, I've cut the ribbon for that for 12 years. I've lit the tree in the Castro for the holidays. Those traditions are important. And I guess just by seeing me everywhere, he's like, you know, if you're not the mayor and I know you don't want to run to political office, then could you be the first lady? So I accepted that graciously. Why are you daddy's little Empress? You know, the leather community was very kind to me in including me in a lot of those things. And being patient with me. I remember the first time I met somebody who it was a daddy-boy relationship and the daddy introduced me. Oh, Don, have you met my boy? And I reached out and touched him and touched his chain with a lock around his neck. And the guy took my hand very firmly and moved away. I mean, you kind of learn these things and nobody, maybe there's a handwritten, maybe there's a handbook written up somewhere, but I don't think there is. And I don't think there should be. It's something you learn from experience. But the leather community was very gracious to me and I volunteered to, as I said, MC and support different causes they had. We shared a lot of common causes. And as I got to know the private part of some of those public figures, somewhere the recognition came that I was not just playing a game. I wasn't putting on a pair of leather shoes to go to a leather event, but I truly did get energy and common purpose in the leather community. So I got that title. Wonderful. But now I'm going to come to something that I know is dear to your heart. And that, of course, is the Imperial Court. You are the absolute Empress 30 of San Francisco. What does that mean? Well, thank you for bringing us back to that. Because I've mentioned the court a couple of times. It's been instrumental in my development. The Jose Saria decided that early on, the gay community was so split in a lot of different directions. If they could have some unifying forces, it would be good. So he convinced a number of the bars to allow this appointment as the queen of a ball, basically, is what it was. And when they crowned it as queen, he said, oh, I'm already a queen. I'll be Empress. And it was a campy little beginning, the whole thing. But then he was very smart to say, every year, I'm not going to be a hit forever. Next year, you'll elect a new one. And then it became a public election. And in those early days of not just fighting against the AIDS stigma and the disease itself, but also just continuing civil rights and police harassment and all those kinds of things, it was great to have a community leader. And maybe in that way, he was the first lady at the time that people expected, if he showed up, it was an important event. And so the imperial court started that way and it continues to be a publicly elected person. Now there's an emperor and an empress each year. And I just, I honor anything that can continue for over 50 years and not hang on by a thread. I mean, we've had some difficult years certainly, but we've always had an emperor and an empress every year for 57 years. They've always completed their full reign every year. And we've never had a repeat. I mean, that's a big record, I think, for a community. It says something about the number of people who are here, but also the desire to serve, the desire to be a part of something and take it to the next level. So I'm happy to be a part of that. Absolute is something that only San Francisco does because we're the founding mother court, we call it because we started the whole thing with Jose. And when we complete our year, we get a number which is, I'm the 30th and we get a ring, which is this one here and we become absolute. So nobody else can ever be the 30th because I was it and so I'm always will be. It's funny with the empress 30, we use Roman numerals which a lot of people do and if you're ever introduced please use the regular numbers because nobody can read it. But when I got, I knew that that was the number I was gonna be running for. Somebody said, oh no, run this year, you'll be empress 29, why wait for 30? And I said, oh no, I kind of like XXX. So I waited another year. One thing though, I think we ought to bring up at this particular point, maybe some people in the audience are not aware of the imperial court system. Would you speak a little bit about that, explain it a bit please? Well, I think it's funny that across the country, again, so many things started here, the first gay chorus was here and then other choruses, there were some men's groups, they didn't have the word gay in the title. And then Morris started doing it. Then Morris said, they did it, let's do it. And now they have these annual conventions of gay choruses everywhere. Well, the court kind of started that way. I think that it started in San Francisco, one of the first courts outside of that was in San Jose and then Alameda, you could sort of see the pattern up and down California. Then one formed in Alaska. Well, somebody moved from here to Alaska, told them about it, it captured their imagination. And if you get a couple of bars involved and a couple of creative people that have musical theater background or like costuming or just love dressing up, it can be the birth of a court. And so several courts had organizations that evolved into an imperial court like New York. I don't know if you've heard of the Night of a Thousand Gowns, but they had this annual ball that major designers Calvin Klein would go, Perry Ellis went and they would attend for the first time ever dramatic, beautiful ball ground drag. And that evolved into an imperial court in New York. We have one in, several in Texas, all across the most recent ones are in Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, which is really pageant states in a more strict pageant with talent and beauty and all that in the crown of the head. But these are working titles and they're organizations that form relationships with bars, form relationships with non-profit organizations we raise money for. And the common thread is one thing that Jose always wanted to do, creating family within those communities because many of us don't have family yet as we grow up into adults and have a lifestyle their parents don't approve of. And caring about others enough to get out there and raise some money, dollar at this time to help somebody else. So I'm very excited that it's spread across Canada and the United States and Mexico the way it has. There've been rumors of starting in Europe that some of those real crown heads get upset about that. So none of that. Even in Canada, one time there was an Empress that wanted to go to their parliament, Canadian parliament to do something and they would be in the abysses booth above but they said somehow they got rumor of who she was. They said, but you can't wear your crown because we're under the crown of Queen Elizabeth. And he deferentially did not wear a crown. So I mean, there's sometimes rules have to apply. Wow, that is amazing. Now, you are the president of the Rainbow Honor Walk. What is that? Thank you, thank you for noticing that. You know, over the course of time that I've been here I think it belonged on a board of directors of maybe six or seven nonprofits. And I just had this personal thing of like, if I believe it in enough to join the board I'll serve for three, four years and make a contribution and then move on because you need new blood and you new ideas. And there may be another organization where I participated. So that's kind of how it's going. And about three years ago, I joined that organization. They put, we put bronze plaques in the sidewalks in the Castro to recognize people who have gone before us people who have deceased, but they're major factors in this civil rights movement that we now all benefit from. And they started with 24 initial plaques were right down Castro Street. And then now we're running up on Marcus Street and a bigger footprint for the Castro. I'm very excited this week. I was able to see some of them actually go in because it's a long process in the nomination, the vetting, the rounding all the different characteristics we have and the diversity we want to represent. Then you have to have them designed and created and there's an artist involved and then a boundary that makes them. So this week we saw eight of the plaques that have been completed some time ago finally go in this sidewalk. What a great feeling that was of pride and some of them were divine. Quinn, Chris, Vito, Russo, Gladys Bentley, names that are known in different fields but recognition none the same that will be always there. And those bronze plaques are gonna last as long as the Statue of Liberty, I think. So. Who are some of the memorialized people, some of the famous people? Well, those are the ones that I mentioned that just went in this week but the initial set were very carefully chosen to represent a wide spectrum. And it went from Christine Georgensen to Tom Waddell, Harry Hay, just to throw out some names that are big, well-known names. As we develop project more, we've also tried to reach out and find lesser known names. So we want somebody to walk down the sidewalk and say, okay, yeah, yeah, wait a minute, who's that? And learn something about them because even on the board, I have names come forward and somebody really champions that name and I get the book about them and watch the movie or something and we're still educating ourselves because there are lots of shoulders out there that we can walk up on and climb upon and take the movement to the next level. For example, is there someone that is immediately close to your heart that you know should be among them? Well, I was proud that during my time on the board, I did get the plaque for Jose Soria put in and it's right in the heart of the Castro. He couldn't be, he would be so proud to see that. You know, if you've been to the Castro, there's the big rainbow flag that is placed right in the heart of the Castro. And when you look up at that, if you look down right there, there's the plaque of Jose Soria. I think there's a lot of historic things that kind of come together at that corner and that was a very proud moment to see that happen. We just approved some new names and one of them is an Imperial as well, the first emperor that will have a plaque in the side of Alcadest, Bob Ross. He started the BAR publication. They gave publication that's been around for 50 years, kept the community involved and educated about what's going on. And he also was very involved in politics when Harvey Milk was assassinated. He had given a piece of paper saying, if my life ends, and he kept thinking it would in a violent way, these are the four people that you can consider for my replacement. And Bob Ross was one of those names. So very involved in the history of San Francisco. So proud of that. Now, if someone were to come to San Francisco and wanted to visit this, is there some kind of like a guide that's available, something that you can do? Thank you, that's been talked about a lot. I think there's probably a more formal way to do it. Again, with COVID, our international travel and even national travel is so much more limited. We're seeing it return now. Kathy Amidola does a tour of the Castro that she was on the board for a while. And so she's very involved with our plaques and she gives a great tour of the Castro and speaks about each of the plaques. And we're still working on ideas that could be larger than that, whether it's a QR code that would walk you through a certain set of them or and we're working on brochures, something to hand out. In this world of incident information, the website is very clear. It gives you the tour, the plaques themselves named and the order they are. And so all that information is there at rainbowhonorwalk.org. Rainbowhonorwalk.org, okay. Now, what advice can you offer someone who may be newly coming into the drug scene? Well, I said a lot of your questions are good. That was a hard one. I don't know. Cause I think when people give advice, it tends to feel like, okay, now I'm going to get on my chair and give you advice, you know, but I don't want to do that because I think that I benefited from just leaning advice from a lot of people around me and not going to a class or something. And so I'm not, class is not in session right now. All I would say is that what a great time to be considering drag or to be considering an alternative lifestyle, to be considering that your personal interests, maybe even fetishes are not out of this world. There are other people that share them with you. So, you know, in the drag world, at one time it was very constrained. Part of it was legally, you know, in San Francisco, I love the story I've heard about. There was a law in the books that said, you could be arrested for impersonating a member of the opposites or wearing clothing of the opposites X with the intention of deceiving. Well, Jose Saria read that law and he put a little piece of paper on his dress and said, I'm a man. I'm not trying to deceive anybody. Can you imagine doing that? What a bold statement. But it worked around the law. But now with drag, I mean, you can follow the RuPaul pattern and I applaud that show and applaud her for all of her success. But I'm not that person that makes her out in outfits and does the death drop and all that stuff. Well, wonderful if that's your choice. If you want to be the person occasionally on Saturday nights goes to the shows and maybe once in a while does a number and it's so important to you really know it and lip sync like a professional. That's great. If you want to be the bearded drag queen, if you want to be the woman who does drag and a drag king or all the non-binary titles, there are more options now. And I think more and more organizations are recognizing that they have to pay attention to those options. So it's a great time to be considering it. If you want to do it, don't let anybody talk you out of it. Do it the way you want to do it and take all the response as valid criticism and take it one grain at a time. That's beautiful. What's the biggest misconception about you? About me personally, I heard somebody not long ago and stuck in my mind say, oh, Donna, please, nobody says no to you. And it was in a meeting, we were trying to raise money and it was a committee, trying to think fundraising ideas and somebody said, how about that one? Oh, Donna, nobody says no to you. That could be not be further from the truth. Of course, people say no. I don't allow that to happen very often because I won't go to that question. I mean, you work around it and say this, you give them an opportunity to participate in something. Why would they say no? So there are ways around that, but I don't ever want to be perceived as this all powerful, like all that my life is perfect. I struggle with a lot of things and that private part of my life is mine to struggle with and I don't share that with a lot of people, but there's always that. And you could say that about the most confident person in the world. I mean, it's important to listen to criticism, but it's important to have those four or five friends around that tell you what criticism is valid and what criticism is just out of envy or detrimental in a different way. So that's a misconception. I think all of us tend to think that our leaders are infallible. I make plenty of mistakes and I have arguments with myself and sometimes arguments with those four or five friends, but nobody really sees it. But the product is a joy of life, a love of life and a joy in being able to participate so fully in a city that I just didn't know that much about and it just embraced me. It's this incredible story really. Donna Seshay, thank you for an amazing interview for Inside Leather History at Byerside Chat. Well, you've talked to a lot of people. I think I know why you are successful in your interviewing because you just kind of unscrew the top and let that person take it off and talk and I appreciate you're giving me that freedom to do that. It's been a pleasure being on your show. Thank you.