In this episode of Revisiting The Gay Life, we're going to focus on bisexuality— as a distinct identity.
Bisexuality was nothing new and sexual exploration was a big part of the counterculture movement of the late 60s and early 70s. But it went mainstream in the mid 1970s, when rockers like David Bowie, Elton John and Lou Reed came out as bisexual with both Time and Newsweek running trend stories about "The New Bisexuals" and "Bisexual Chic". Coastal communities in the United States were at the leading edge of societal change. And, in San Francisco, bisexuals began to create their own spaces and organizations.
Host Randy Alfred interviewed leaders of those organizations on The Gay Life. And we’ll be revisiting two conversations from 1981.
Featured in this episode:
- Maggi Rubenstein, co-founder of the San Francisco Bisexual Center
- David Loreau, co-director of the San Francisco Bisexual Center
- Dr. Earl M. Marsh, medical director of the clinic at the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality
Revisiting The Gay Life is a new 12-episode series from KALW’s Queer Power Hour. It explores a pivotal moment in SF’s LGBTQ history — from the rise of Harvey Milk to the early days of what would later be called AIDS.
We reconsider this time through a perhaps unexpected lens: a radio show called The Gay Life that aired on KSAN, a commercial rock and roll station in the Bay Area in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Revisiting The Gay Life is produced by KALW Public Media in collaboration with the GLBT Historical Society and The Gay Life's longtime host Randy Alfred.
