Florida’s LGBTQ plus community is facing greater uncertainty than they have in years, due to growing backlash and new laws that place restrictions on gender identity, sexual orientation discussions in schools, and attempts to restrict certain healthcare services.
Still, people are finding ways to persevere, live and thrive. Last year, StoryCorps paid a visit to Tallahassee and hosted a series of sessions allowing local residents to tell their stories. One of those conversations is between former journalist and Reverend Susan Gage, and her longtime friend Terry Galloway, who share their perspectives on identity, community, acceptance and religion.
“These interviews were recorded at StoryCorps, a national initiative to record and collect stories of everyday people. Excerpts were selected and produced by WFSU Public Media. To hear the full conversation, go to archive.storycorps.org
Transcribed by Otter.Ai
00:01
SG: My name is Susan Gage, the Reverend Susan Gage. My age is 53. And today’s date is Monday, November 29, 2021. We’re in Tallahassee, Florida. And my interview partner is Terry Galloway, who is my friend and neighbor.
00:19
TG: And my name is Terry Galloway. My age is 71. Today’s date is Monday, November 29, 2021. We’re in Tallahassee, Florida. My interview partner is my friend, as my friend Susan Gage…my relationship to her is my friend.
00:39
TG: She’s also my litter mate, the same litter, but many decades, many, many decades apart.
00:46
TG: So what do we think? What do you think we have in common?
SG: Well, we have obviously the Mickey [Faust] Club in common and yes, you know, I don’t think a group of people out there, like us probably doesn’t know about Mickey [Faust]. So let’s talk about what that is.
TG: Mickey Phelps is a it’s called a community theater for the weird queer and
01:07
TG: disabled community. It’s radically inclusive. It’s been around for 35 years.
SG” more than that, Terry. three more than that, right? Yeah, more than that, oh, I didn’t know that. It was 1987 that it started. Yeah. And it’s been inclusion. We a lot of trans people, LGBT. Lots of people with this different kinds of disabilities. They do original work. And we have writing, we have free writing, and performance workshops, and we show people in the community, how to write and then we show him how to perform. And then we do these, we do two cabarets a year, one in the spring, and then we do our Queer as Faust festival in the summer. And then in the fall, we do shakes parody are a moveable Shakespeare, or an original work by somebody in a company. That’s, that sums it up pretty much.
SG: I think that pretty much sums it up. I think the most wonderful thing about Faust is not only just the fact that we write our own material, that our skits and songs have beginning, middle and end to the pieces, but also the fact that it has been such a home for so many people that wouldn’t normally necessarily get to be on stage, like me. I mean, one of the things that was wonderful when I joined Faust, because like when I was in high school and college, if I auditioned for a play, I would very quickly just be the person that read the lines for the people they actually wanted to cast. They wouldn’t want to cast me. I was one time, told that even though I did a tremendous performance of St. Joan from Bernard Shaw’s play, that I would never be cast in that role, because I was too tall.
TG: So that’s so weird, too tall?
SG: Yes, I was too tall, and I look too strong onstage,
TG: so so that season, but that’s why I love Faust, because of that ethos that the ethic of accommodation that it because and that comes I think, from my deafness, and also being told no repeatedly throughout it, that you can’t pursue something that you love, because you don’t fit the image. And you’re not the you’re not perfect thing. And I think a lot of people in Faust care because of that, too. That’s why you have people like like grand, you know, who didn’t never thought he would get up on stage because of this CP cerebral palsy or KC or? No, a lot of a lot of people in felt like that. And so I’m good. I’m glad. I’m glad I love Phelps. For that reason to Susan, I have to say I really love it too. That it’s it is radically inclusive. Yay. Yeah. So we have that in common. That in common? That’s one thing queerness we’re very queer.
03:45
SG: We’re queer in different ways. I think–
03:49
TG: I always felt it’s so funny Susan, even though I use I do you see she, her that you know that pronouns? I’ve always felt more like they, and actually kind of more like a cartoon character often, you know? Well, one because I play you
04:06
TG: know, it’s hard not to play a giant Rodden you know, foul mouth, Kersey bear Gunfleet run without kind of identifying that but I do, you know, I feel like a vague I felt like I’m, I’m all of it. You know, all of it. And I really liked that. And I’ve loved that discussion coming up. I’ve loved that. You know, that that kind of gender? Like yes, yeah. Yeah.
TG; The, the gender fluidity is absolutely wonderful. I think that’s very fun. But you’re that way too, I think. I think so.
SG: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think that I use the she/her pronouns. But I also identify also as queer
04:45
because I don’t necessarily look like a traditional female, a traditional she/her. And that’s actually something that I’ve been trying to incorporate more and more with, when I’m running groups is to
05:00
SG: We’ll make one of the first things we do is and what are your pronouns and I often get weird looks, but I’m like, this is something that, you know, we need to start thinking about and considering because not everybody identifies in the binary.
TG: You know, Susan, one of the things that’s that I remember from Faust, the early days in that, when the first the second show we did, we had two transgender women, and the performance. And we it was 1987. And this, and this is Tallahassee. And this was new to people. Everyone was wonderful and welcoming. But what we didn’t know is that the time we had two dressing rooms, one for the guys weren’t for the women. And we assigned them because we had assigned dressing rooms and tables, to the men’s dressing room. And I remember, they were both so hurt, that it stopped everyone. And we were just like, what have we done. So I remember when I came out to my, my parents, because my dad had been at like, I thought that he was virulently anti-gay because he had been in the counterintelligence in Germany, and they were very suspicious of gays. And I remember that there was like, horrible witch hunts that would go on all the time about this. But when I told them I was gay, they were first of all, my mother said, I just thought you were a tomboy.
06:26
TG: And I thought ‘I am to the nth degree’. But they were just determined they were gonna love me.
06:34
TG:And I was so grateful. And they said, and not only love me, but anybody I brought home.
SG: Aw.
TG: And, and they told me that and, and I was so grateful. You know, I was so grateful. And I think a lot of kids who are career don’t get that kind of support from their parents. They don’t get that kind of love. And I think it’s a shock to them.
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