September 11, 2024 • 31 mins
In 2009, Annise Parker became the first openly gay mayor of a major American city. As mayor, her signature piece of equal rights legislation famously failed — but it drove her to help elect more LGBTQ+ Americans into office than ever before.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
But We Loved is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
The Outspoken podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
As mayor of Houston, I could not extend my benefits,
my insurance benefits, my pension, any of those things to
the first Lady of Houston. And even after we were
married legally in another state, I could not extend benefits
until the Supreme Court and their o Bergerfeld decision granted
(00:30):
equal marriage rights. So seventeen and a half years full
time public service, and I was a second class citizen
to every one of my straight colleagues.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
As a gay kid, growing up religious and in the South,
I thought being gay was the worst thing I could
ever be. Now, as a journalist, I'm trying to unlearn
that by seeking out our history, and what I've found
are people and stories full of courage, perseverance, and love.
(01:08):
In this episode, we'll meet a niece Parker, the first
gay mayor of a major American city. We'll learn how
her roots and queer activism led her into politics, and
how a historical career in politics would bring her right
back to where she came from. From My Heart Podcast,
(01:29):
I'm Jordan Consolms, and this is what we Loved Recently,
(01:55):
there's been an unprecedented amount of LGBTQ representation in American politics.
As of twenty twenty four, there are multiple out governors, mayors,
and members of Congress, but this is actually a pretty
recent development. My next guest, Anise Parker, was the first
(02:16):
openly gay mayor of a major American city. She was
elected in two thousand and nine, and it just so
happens that she was my mayor in my hometown of Houston, Texas,
and I vividly remember the night she won. I was fourteen,
and I was super closeted, and I was afraid to
(02:38):
even admit to myself that I was gay, but I
was rooting for her. The campaign had gotten nasty in
the last month, and I'd even seen this flyer. It
had a photo of her and her partner and the
title read, is this the image Houston wants to portray?
I watched on TV as the man behind that flyer
(03:02):
was interviewed saying homosexuality leads to extinction. When she won,
I was watching the local news with my parents, and
I whispered to myself, yes, I think for all of us,
it was the first time we ever saw a gay
(03:22):
person in a position of power like that. But like
many queer people, Anise Parker was closeted until college, and
she never thought politics would be part of her destiny.
What was it like growing up in Houston in the
(03:44):
nineteen sixties as a queer kid.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
So? I was born in nineteen fifty six and grew
up in the Spring Branch area of Houston, which was
way out in the country. It was cows and horsemasters
and pretty earle at the time. I figured out when
I was about twelve that I was gay, And it
(04:08):
wasn't actually until we moved out of Houston. My dad
was in the Red Cross but service to military installations
and we did a two year stint in Germany in
the middle of my high school years, and I that's
when I fell in love for the first time.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Wait, so tell me about that. You fell in love
for the first time at fifteen years old.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
On a and you think Houston's conservative, try a military base.
I was still in the fallout from Vietnam in a
very conservative place. But it was fine until one day
her parents walked in on us while we were kissing
and separated us, told us that we were never going
(04:52):
to see each other again. I was devastated, but we
were desperate to see each other. So we worked out
a plan and we started teaching Sunday School in the
base chapel, and so the only time we got to
see each other was was around Sunday mornings. But the
(05:13):
happy end of the story at the at the end
of the year of teaching Sunday School, and this is
near the end of my junior year, the ministers over
the Sunday School program, as a reward, took us to
Paris for a weekend. We got to share a room
together for the first They were completely clueless as too,
but what was going on? But we were so excited,
(05:36):
so like the first time really being alone with my
girlfriend was a beautiful weekend in Paris. So but then
that year ended, my family rotated back to the States
did as did hers, into different places, and that was
the end of that.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
You know, I wonder Mayor Parker like how that relationship
kind of formed you, because it seems like it was
sort of based in so much secrecy.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
What I figured out through that experience teaching Sunday School
was hiding in plain sight. And I think throughout history
a lot of LGBT folks have done that maybe put
on a mask and figured out how to adapt and exist.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
I've read that you really struggled with your mental health
growing up. What was that like.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
When I look back on my high school years being
realizing it was a lesbian and navigating the fact that
I was forbidden to see the person that I was
in love with and I was crushed and lonely, and
you know, warning that relationship. I was trying to create
(06:54):
good habits, but the stress it caused me to to
self harm. So yes, I became a cutter. The cutting
is just is like next door to eating disorders. It
is a way of controlling. It's something you can control
(07:16):
in a world that you don't feel like that feels
out of control. And fortunately I was able to put
that aside and realize that there's only so many places
and ways I could push myself that could still be
and still be healthy. I never let myself get too
far away.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Wow, well, tell me now about what it was like
coming out to your family.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Naively, I thought that this is nineteen seventy four. Naively,
I thought that, well, college is going to be so
much better than high school. It's going to be it's
not going to be repressive like the Army base. When
I came to Rice, it was I'm going to be
out from the first day, and so freshman week, orientation week,
(08:04):
I came out in my residential college and discovered that
no college was not that much more open minded than
than than high school. And even though I wasn't the
you know, the big city of Houston, it was not
all that progressive. My junior year at Rice, I was
the only junior that got that got a single room
(08:26):
because no one wanted to enter the room lottery with me. Again,
and I room with the lesbian because then everybody would
think they were lesbian. I was out into my parents.
In my senior year in college, I again I was.
I was like the notorious, the notorious lesbian. I was
actually playing in a powderputt football game, and as was
(08:50):
my girlfriend, and she was from Houston and her mother
for some reason had come to the game and she
was sitting up in the stand and there's some football
guys in front of her, and one of them pointed
at me and said that I was a lesbian, and oh,
(09:10):
and her lover is that one over there and pointed
to my to my roommate, and it was her daughter,
and she went home and had it out with her
with her daughter. But she also sent my parents a letter.
I was like an eight page letter and the first
(09:31):
line was last year at Rice, your daughter and my
daughter had a big love affair, and went on and
on about how we need to stop to it. And
my mother put it in another envelope and forwarded it
to me. And then my girlfriend's mother tried to get
(09:52):
me expelled. She went to the dean of students and
asked that I be expelled. And we should remember that
it was very common into the early seventies for universities
to expel students from homosexual activities on campus. I have
friends to whom that happened. We had a very awkward
(10:13):
conversation and she asked me if I about my middle health,
and I was like, how was I doing in classes?
And she required me, and she required each of us
to go have a couple of sessions with psychiatric services
and then we went on our way. Wow, so I
was outed, but they didn't want to hear it. And
(10:34):
I think that happens again in a lot of families.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
At what point in your life did you realize that
equality was something that was important to you.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
I graduated in nineteen seventy eight, but the following year,
recognizing what I had gone through as a student and
the challenges I had had, and wanted to make it
easier and better for the next generation of students, I
helped found the Rice University LGBT Student Association. It was
called that Rice Gay and Lesbian Student Support Group. I
(11:08):
had already graduated, but I was still engaged. We spent
the next couple of years trying to become an official
students association. There was at that time, I believe there
was one at University of Texas, and there was one
at the University of Houston, and there really weren't any
others in the state of Texas. And ultimately we were
(11:29):
officially recognized by the university, and I stayed involved for
a lot of years, helping it grow.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
When we come back, a Nice Parker runs for office
for the first time. It's the early nineties. A Nice
Parker never thought politics was in her future, but being
(12:00):
outed to her parents in college and then later founding
the first LGBT group at Rice helped her realize that
equality was important to her and something worth fighting for.
She became president for what was then called the Houston
Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus, and they wanted someone of
(12:20):
their own to run and win a seat on Houston
City Council in nineteen ninety one. So how did you
get into politics?
Speaker 2 (12:30):
I never wanted to be in politics. I just wanted
to fix things. I decided to run for city council
because I was a lesbian activist. I was recruited by
folks in the LGBTQ community. They wanted a candidate to
run for city council who was open the lgbt And
(12:53):
you know, my heart wasn't in it, and I was
not a good candidate, and I lost the race in
nineteen ninety one. I curled up in a fetal position
for a while because everything about campaigning is hard. I said,
I'm never going to run for office again. It was
(13:14):
a miserable experience. But a few years later an opportunity
opened up. City council member Sheila Jackson Lee was elected
to Congress and she vacated her city council seat. By
this point, I was a civic club president and a
very active in community. And this special election six week
(13:36):
campaign December and January's mid January election, I can do this,
and I lost. So in nineteen ninety seven ran for
the third time, and I made appointments with the editorial
directors of the TV stations and the papers, and laid
out the portfolio and said, look at all of these,
(13:58):
look at the coverage. You talk about what my opponents,
where they work, what they do for a living. You
refer to me as a gay activist. I actually have
a job. I don't mind that you refer to me
as a gay activist, but you need to be talking
about these other folks. It's what they do in their
volunteer time. Oh, by the way, I'm also the president
(14:19):
of the Neartown Civic Association, and by the way, I'm
president of the Neartown Community Development Corporation as a volunteer.
But all you want to talk about is the fact
that I'm a gay activist. How is this appropriate? Treat
me the same way you treat everybody else. And by God,
the third time I ran, the coverage changed. And so
(14:40):
the third time I ran, I was an Ewes Parker
who had virtually every minority elected official in the region
on my endorsement list, and was successful and then one
nine consecutive citywide races, including three terms as as mayor.
But I didn't set out to be a mayor. I
(15:02):
just set out to come to the city to work
on issues.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
So in two thousand and nine, you run for mayor
and they are these anti gay flyers that go out
to voters saying people shouldn't vote for you because you're gay.
So I'm just wondering, how are you dealing with that?
Even though you had won previous races, this clearly was
(15:27):
an issue for you.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
You know, my opponents were you know, politics actually weren't
all that different. There were two one Progressive Democrat and
one minorate Democrat, and they didn't talk about it. But
a mailer went out citywide and it had a picture
of me being sworn in as city controller. And I'm
standing at a lovely dress on my hand raised. My
(15:50):
wife is standing next to me. She's holding she's actually
holding a company of the Constitution instead of a holy book.
But I had my hands on the Constitution my hands,
and I'm being sworn in as city controller by a
black female federal judge in her row. And at the
bottom of this mailer it says, is this the image
(16:10):
of Houston? We want the world to see and it
backfired spectacularly because he was obviously focusing on here I
am on stage, you know, with another woman, and I'm
not having my hand on the Bible and so forth.
But women across the city like, well, okay, he doesn't
like women politicians, he doesn't like black women, doesn't like
(16:33):
women judges. I mean, it was actually a boost to
my campaign. I have a little copy of it framed.
And then when at the nine I was elected, my
election got worldwide media coverage. It even got a little
box in the Times of India. Someone sent it to me.
(16:54):
Mayors of Houston don't normally make worldwide media coverage, but
it was lesbian elected mayor of Houston, and that was
all anybody wanted to talk about, lesbian mayor of Houston.
I was caught off guard, and I think Houstonians were too,
because I'd already been like the lesbian candidate and people knew.
But suddenly the whole world was talking about it, and
(17:16):
I was inundated with media. But I declined a lot
of opportunities to talk to LGBT audiences. I didn't want
to do the dog and Pony show. I just wanted
to get down to the work of the city and
doing the best mayor I could be. Now, I was
(17:37):
aware that other people were watching, and that was a
big deal to a lot of other folks, And so
in my wrote I wrote my own victory speech. I
wanted to acknowledge the history, but I also didn't want
it to be the most important thing, because the most
(17:58):
important thing for me was to connect to Houstonians and
really get down to work. And so I made a joke.
I talked about how Houston elected the first, the very
first graduate of Rice University to be mayor of Houston,
and like everybody burst out laughing. The tension left the room,
(18:20):
and then I could talk about the fact that yes
I was, you know, we've made history. I was the
first LGBT mayor. And then quickly pivoted back to thanking
people and back to welcoming the people who had voted
for my opponents into the fold.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Okay, so this is the early twenty tens and gay
marriage is not yet legal, but you're the first gay
mayor of a major city in America. Were there any
weird things that were happening to you that you think
maybe weren't happening to other mayors?
Speaker 2 (18:52):
As Mayor of Houston, I could not extend my benefits,
my insurance benefits, my pension, any of those things to
the first Lady of Houston. And even after we were
married legally in another state, I could not extend benefits
until the Supreme Court and their o Bergerfeld decision granted
(19:15):
equal marriage rights. So seventeen and a half years full
time public service and I was a second class citizen
to every one of my straight colleagues.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
In twenty fourteen, Mayor and niece Parker managed to pass
a signature piece of equal rights legislation. It was called
the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance or HERO. It guaranteed protections
against discrimination for minorities ranging from veterans to pregnant women.
Most of those groups were already protected under federal law,
(19:49):
but Mayor Parker's legislation extended it to one group that
didn't have any federal protections, LGBTQ people. But she was
up against fierce resistance. Opponents of the law, which included
several religious groups, took issues with protections for transgender people specifically,
(20:12):
and once the law passed, they sued in hopes of
repealing it.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
No one had any protections, so we were putting African
Americans and immigrants and you know, women and people with
disabilities because this would allow a local ordinance for the
first time to protect them also. And I thought, you know,
it's not going to be about my community. It's not
(20:38):
going to be about the algeb. It's going to be
about doing the right thing for all of Houston. And
then we passed the ordinance and the only thing that
the anti groups were focused on was trans rites And
in fact, the organizers of the resistance actually came to
city Council before we passed the ordinance and said in
(20:59):
chamber on camera, if you will remove all trans protections,
we will allow the ordinance to go forward. No, that's
not how this is gonna work. We're not gonna throw
one group under the bus. This is an ordinance for everyone.
And then the anti folks organized a petition drive to
(21:21):
repeal it, and the State Supreme Court said something to
the effect, city you need to either repeal it or
put it on the ballot for a vote. We refuse
to repeal it, and so we went to a vote,
the Hero vote us napel Rights ordinances. The Hero vote
was the first real public vote on something after the
(21:46):
Supreme Court ruled on marriage that year, and it was
fueled by national money. It was essentially a national outpoorting
of anger from the right about a whole lot of
changes that were happening socially, and this was a place
(22:06):
where they could dig into it. And interesting fact, you know,
they were running ads about little girls being raped in
bathrooms by straight people going into women's bathrooms. All they
cared about was those images of you know, a little
girl being assaulted in a bathroom. That I mean, horrible commercial.
(22:28):
And it went down in defeat.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
What did that feel like personally for you to lose
that battle?
Speaker 2 (22:37):
And I was hurt and angry and frustrated. I took
it very personally. And the Hero Ordinance vote, this was
after I had already been again elected nine times by
these same people who turned around and said, yeah, you know,
you're hey, we love you as mayor, but you shouldn't
(22:57):
have civil rights protections.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Due to term limits, mayor a niece, Parker couldn't run
for a fourth term, so in twenty sixteen, she finished
her term and became the president of what is now
called the LGBTQ Victory Fund, a political organization with the
mission of electing LGBTQ people to public office at every level.
(23:39):
She announced this year that after leading the Victory Fund
for seven years, she was going to step down. According
to their annual report, Mayor Parker helped nearly triple the
amount of queer elected officials across the United States, from
mayors to congress people to governors. But her victory is
(24:01):
there were inspired by one of her biggest losses, the
Equality Ordinance. How did that loss, which seems like it
was a profound loss for you, how did that really
shape you?
Speaker 2 (24:19):
It reinforced to me the importance of individuals standing up
and speaking out. And so I took the high and
the low and decided that what I needed to do
next was go back to my roots and become an
(24:40):
activist again, which is essentially what I've done through the
LGBTQ Victory Fund and Victory Institute, and that is helping
other people navigate the political process so they can be
in the room where decisions are made. But also, you know,
(25:00):
even even a losing campaign, when when an out person
somewhere across the country stands up and says, this is
who I am. I want to serve you. This is
the issue. These are the issues I want to work on,
whether they're successful as a candidate or not. They're changing
hearts in minds, and the fact that the opposition is
(25:21):
getting more and more ugly and virulent. It's just a
factor of our success. If we weren't, if we weren't winning,
if we weren't changing hearts and minds, folks on the
hard right would not be coming at us.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
You're about to step down from the LGBTQ Victory Fund
after leading it for several years, and it feels like
that's an intentional decision to make way for a new
generation of LGBTQ leaders. And this show is about passing
(25:58):
down thing from one generation of queer people to the next.
And so what do you hope to pass down to
the next generation of queer leaders that are fighting for
equality just as you've done almost your whole life.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
What I am leaving is a strong and vibrant organization
that is still very relevant to what's happening politically today.
And the advice I would offer to my successor is that,
unfortunately lgbt rights are under attack in ways that they
(26:39):
haven't been in decades. Do not fall into the trap
of saying those people we have to write off. Those
people are still our There are still our parents, our
brothers and sisters, our cousins, our family members. We have
to stay in and remind them that the soh they
(27:01):
attack us, one we're going to persevere, and two we're
going to win in the end. But they have to
see us as full human beings, and the only way
they do that is by us being out and visible
and present in front of them.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Why do you think it's important for queer people and
queer young people to get involved in politics? And this
is after you've had a really decorated career in politics.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Just because you don't care about politics doesn't mean that
politics doesn't care about you. It doesn't influence your life.
And we have not just a responsibility or a right,
we have an obligation to be involved in that. Unless
(27:58):
you have someone in the room where a decision is
actually made and put on paper and made into law,
you have nothing. And we have to be in a
position we, those of us who are lgbt have to
be in those rooms. Democracy is better and stronger and
functions wholly when everyone is represented, and that includes the
(28:21):
LGBTQ community, and I don't want to be talked about.
I want to be spoken with, and so when I
am in the room, they have to speak with me.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
I just want to say, it's just amazing to meet you.
You I think have shaped so much of my own life.
My father and mother were I honestly think you were
probably one of the first gay people they ever saw
in public life, and I think to see someone so
(28:53):
poised and accomplished it sort of in a way way
years later, prepared them to think, oh, wow, like I
think my son could could be someone like that one day.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Now. When I first became a council member, I heard from,
you know, gay folks in city government. I would get
on an elevator in city Hall and someone would jump
on the elevator with me and they would whisper to
me that they were okay tow and they really appreciated
me being there. When I became mayor, I started hearing
(29:28):
from parents that my success gave them a different image
of what was possible for their children. And I had
a lot of parents say that that I gave them
them hope, and that is that is one of the
best things to take away from my time in als.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
But we Loved is hosted by me Jordan Gonsolves. New
episodes drop every Wednesday. If you want to write in
to tell your story, email us at but Weloved at
gmail dot com or send us a message on Instagram
or TikTok at but We Loved. We are a production
of The Outspoken Podcast Network and iHeart Podcasts. But We
(30:25):
Loved was originally developed with Pushkin Industries. Our producers Areshena Ozaki,
Michael June, Emily Meronoff, and Joey patt Our. Executive producers
are Me Maya Howard. Fact checking by Marisa Brown. Original
music by Steve Bone. Special thanks to Jay Bronson and
Rock kel Willis. If you loved this episode, leave us
(30:48):
a rating and follow us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify,
and thank you for listening. I'll see you next week.
But We Loved is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
The Outspoken podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
As mayor of Houston, I could not extend my benefits,
my insurance benefits, my pension, any of those things to
the first Lady of Houston. And even after we were
married legally in another state, I could not extend benefits
until the Supreme Court and their o Bergerfeld decision granted
(00:30):
equal marriage rights. So seventeen and a half years full
time public service, and I was a second class citizen
to every one of my straight colleagues.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
As a gay kid, growing up religious and in the South,
I thought being gay was the worst thing I could
ever be. Now, as a journalist, I'm trying to unlearn
that by seeking out our history, and what I've found
are people and stories full of courage, perseverance, and love.
(01:08):
In this episode, we'll meet a niece Parker, the first
gay mayor of a major American city. We'll learn how
her roots and queer activism led her into politics, and
how a historical career in politics would bring her right
back to where she came from. From My Heart Podcast,
(01:29):
I'm Jordan Consolms, and this is what we Loved Recently,
(01:55):
there's been an unprecedented amount of LGBTQ representation in American politics.
As of twenty twenty four, there are multiple out governors, mayors,
and members of Congress, but this is actually a pretty
recent development. My next guest, Anise Parker, was the first
(02:16):
openly gay mayor of a major American city. She was
elected in two thousand and nine, and it just so
happens that she was my mayor in my hometown of Houston, Texas,
and I vividly remember the night she won. I was fourteen,
and I was super closeted, and I was afraid to
(02:38):
even admit to myself that I was gay, but I
was rooting for her. The campaign had gotten nasty in
the last month, and I'd even seen this flyer. It
had a photo of her and her partner and the
title read, is this the image Houston wants to portray?
I watched on TV as the man behind that flyer
(03:02):
was interviewed saying homosexuality leads to extinction. When she won,
I was watching the local news with my parents, and
I whispered to myself, yes, I think for all of us,
it was the first time we ever saw a gay
(03:22):
person in a position of power like that. But like
many queer people, Anise Parker was closeted until college, and
she never thought politics would be part of her destiny.
What was it like growing up in Houston in the
(03:44):
nineteen sixties as a queer kid.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
So? I was born in nineteen fifty six and grew
up in the Spring Branch area of Houston, which was
way out in the country. It was cows and horsemasters
and pretty earle at the time. I figured out when
I was about twelve that I was gay, And it
(04:08):
wasn't actually until we moved out of Houston. My dad
was in the Red Cross but service to military installations
and we did a two year stint in Germany in
the middle of my high school years, and I that's
when I fell in love for the first time.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Wait, so tell me about that. You fell in love
for the first time at fifteen years old.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
On a and you think Houston's conservative, try a military base.
I was still in the fallout from Vietnam in a
very conservative place. But it was fine until one day
her parents walked in on us while we were kissing
and separated us, told us that we were never going
(04:52):
to see each other again. I was devastated, but we
were desperate to see each other. So we worked out
a plan and we started teaching Sunday School in the
base chapel, and so the only time we got to
see each other was was around Sunday mornings. But the
(05:13):
happy end of the story at the at the end
of the year of teaching Sunday School, and this is
near the end of my junior year, the ministers over
the Sunday School program, as a reward, took us to
Paris for a weekend. We got to share a room
together for the first They were completely clueless as too,
but what was going on? But we were so excited,
(05:36):
so like the first time really being alone with my
girlfriend was a beautiful weekend in Paris. So but then
that year ended, my family rotated back to the States
did as did hers, into different places, and that was
the end of that.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
You know, I wonder Mayor Parker like how that relationship
kind of formed you, because it seems like it was
sort of based in so much secrecy.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
What I figured out through that experience teaching Sunday School
was hiding in plain sight. And I think throughout history
a lot of LGBT folks have done that maybe put
on a mask and figured out how to adapt and exist.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
I've read that you really struggled with your mental health
growing up. What was that like.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
When I look back on my high school years being
realizing it was a lesbian and navigating the fact that
I was forbidden to see the person that I was
in love with and I was crushed and lonely, and
you know, warning that relationship. I was trying to create
(06:54):
good habits, but the stress it caused me to to
self harm. So yes, I became a cutter. The cutting
is just is like next door to eating disorders. It
is a way of controlling. It's something you can control
(07:16):
in a world that you don't feel like that feels
out of control. And fortunately I was able to put
that aside and realize that there's only so many places
and ways I could push myself that could still be
and still be healthy. I never let myself get too
far away.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Wow, well, tell me now about what it was like
coming out to your family.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Naively, I thought that this is nineteen seventy four. Naively,
I thought that, well, college is going to be so
much better than high school. It's going to be it's
not going to be repressive like the Army base. When
I came to Rice, it was I'm going to be
out from the first day, and so freshman week, orientation week,
(08:04):
I came out in my residential college and discovered that
no college was not that much more open minded than
than than high school. And even though I wasn't the
you know, the big city of Houston, it was not
all that progressive. My junior year at Rice, I was
the only junior that got that got a single room
(08:26):
because no one wanted to enter the room lottery with me. Again,
and I room with the lesbian because then everybody would
think they were lesbian. I was out into my parents.
In my senior year in college, I again I was.
I was like the notorious, the notorious lesbian. I was
actually playing in a powderputt football game, and as was
(08:50):
my girlfriend, and she was from Houston and her mother
for some reason had come to the game and she
was sitting up in the stand and there's some football
guys in front of her, and one of them pointed
at me and said that I was a lesbian, and oh,
(09:10):
and her lover is that one over there and pointed
to my to my roommate, and it was her daughter,
and she went home and had it out with her
with her daughter. But she also sent my parents a letter.
I was like an eight page letter and the first
(09:31):
line was last year at Rice, your daughter and my
daughter had a big love affair, and went on and
on about how we need to stop to it. And
my mother put it in another envelope and forwarded it
to me. And then my girlfriend's mother tried to get
(09:52):
me expelled. She went to the dean of students and
asked that I be expelled. And we should remember that
it was very common into the early seventies for universities
to expel students from homosexual activities on campus. I have
friends to whom that happened. We had a very awkward
(10:13):
conversation and she asked me if I about my middle health,
and I was like, how was I doing in classes?
And she required me, and she required each of us
to go have a couple of sessions with psychiatric services
and then we went on our way. Wow, so I
was outed, but they didn't want to hear it. And
(10:34):
I think that happens again in a lot of families.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
At what point in your life did you realize that
equality was something that was important to you.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
I graduated in nineteen seventy eight, but the following year,
recognizing what I had gone through as a student and
the challenges I had had, and wanted to make it
easier and better for the next generation of students, I
helped found the Rice University LGBT Student Association. It was
called that Rice Gay and Lesbian Student Support Group. I
(11:08):
had already graduated, but I was still engaged. We spent
the next couple of years trying to become an official
students association. There was at that time, I believe there
was one at University of Texas, and there was one
at the University of Houston, and there really weren't any
others in the state of Texas. And ultimately we were
(11:29):
officially recognized by the university, and I stayed involved for
a lot of years, helping it grow.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
When we come back, a Nice Parker runs for office
for the first time. It's the early nineties. A Nice
Parker never thought politics was in her future, but being
(12:00):
outed to her parents in college and then later founding
the first LGBT group at Rice helped her realize that
equality was important to her and something worth fighting for.
She became president for what was then called the Houston
Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus, and they wanted someone of
(12:20):
their own to run and win a seat on Houston
City Council in nineteen ninety one. So how did you
get into politics?
Speaker 2 (12:30):
I never wanted to be in politics. I just wanted
to fix things. I decided to run for city council
because I was a lesbian activist. I was recruited by
folks in the LGBTQ community. They wanted a candidate to
run for city council who was open the lgbt And
(12:53):
you know, my heart wasn't in it, and I was
not a good candidate, and I lost the race in
nineteen ninety one. I curled up in a fetal position
for a while because everything about campaigning is hard. I said,
I'm never going to run for office again. It was
(13:14):
a miserable experience. But a few years later an opportunity
opened up. City council member Sheila Jackson Lee was elected
to Congress and she vacated her city council seat. By
this point, I was a civic club president and a
very active in community. And this special election six week
(13:36):
campaign December and January's mid January election, I can do this,
and I lost. So in nineteen ninety seven ran for
the third time, and I made appointments with the editorial
directors of the TV stations and the papers, and laid
out the portfolio and said, look at all of these,
(13:58):
look at the coverage. You talk about what my opponents,
where they work, what they do for a living. You
refer to me as a gay activist. I actually have
a job. I don't mind that you refer to me
as a gay activist, but you need to be talking
about these other folks. It's what they do in their
volunteer time. Oh, by the way, I'm also the president
(14:19):
of the Neartown Civic Association, and by the way, I'm
president of the Neartown Community Development Corporation as a volunteer.
But all you want to talk about is the fact
that I'm a gay activist. How is this appropriate? Treat
me the same way you treat everybody else. And by God,
the third time I ran, the coverage changed. And so
(14:40):
the third time I ran, I was an Ewes Parker
who had virtually every minority elected official in the region
on my endorsement list, and was successful and then one
nine consecutive citywide races, including three terms as as mayor.
But I didn't set out to be a mayor. I
(15:02):
just set out to come to the city to work
on issues.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
So in two thousand and nine, you run for mayor
and they are these anti gay flyers that go out
to voters saying people shouldn't vote for you because you're gay.
So I'm just wondering, how are you dealing with that?
Even though you had won previous races, this clearly was
(15:27):
an issue for you.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
You know, my opponents were you know, politics actually weren't
all that different. There were two one Progressive Democrat and
one minorate Democrat, and they didn't talk about it. But
a mailer went out citywide and it had a picture
of me being sworn in as city controller. And I'm
standing at a lovely dress on my hand raised. My
(15:50):
wife is standing next to me. She's holding she's actually
holding a company of the Constitution instead of a holy book.
But I had my hands on the Constitution my hands,
and I'm being sworn in as city controller by a
black female federal judge in her row. And at the
bottom of this mailer it says, is this the image
(16:10):
of Houston? We want the world to see and it
backfired spectacularly because he was obviously focusing on here I
am on stage, you know, with another woman, and I'm
not having my hand on the Bible and so forth.
But women across the city like, well, okay, he doesn't
like women politicians, he doesn't like black women, doesn't like
(16:33):
women judges. I mean, it was actually a boost to
my campaign. I have a little copy of it framed.
And then when at the nine I was elected, my
election got worldwide media coverage. It even got a little
box in the Times of India. Someone sent it to me.
(16:54):
Mayors of Houston don't normally make worldwide media coverage, but
it was lesbian elected mayor of Houston, and that was
all anybody wanted to talk about, lesbian mayor of Houston.
I was caught off guard, and I think Houstonians were too,
because I'd already been like the lesbian candidate and people knew.
But suddenly the whole world was talking about it, and
(17:16):
I was inundated with media. But I declined a lot
of opportunities to talk to LGBT audiences. I didn't want
to do the dog and Pony show. I just wanted
to get down to the work of the city and
doing the best mayor I could be. Now, I was
(17:37):
aware that other people were watching, and that was a
big deal to a lot of other folks, And so
in my wrote I wrote my own victory speech. I
wanted to acknowledge the history, but I also didn't want
it to be the most important thing, because the most
(17:58):
important thing for me was to connect to Houstonians and
really get down to work. And so I made a joke.
I talked about how Houston elected the first, the very
first graduate of Rice University to be mayor of Houston,
and like everybody burst out laughing. The tension left the room,
(18:20):
and then I could talk about the fact that yes
I was, you know, we've made history. I was the
first LGBT mayor. And then quickly pivoted back to thanking
people and back to welcoming the people who had voted
for my opponents into the fold.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Okay, so this is the early twenty tens and gay
marriage is not yet legal, but you're the first gay
mayor of a major city in America. Were there any
weird things that were happening to you that you think
maybe weren't happening to other mayors?
Speaker 2 (18:52):
As Mayor of Houston, I could not extend my benefits,
my insurance benefits, my pension, any of those things to
the first Lady of Houston. And even after we were
married legally in another state, I could not extend benefits
until the Supreme Court and their o Bergerfeld decision granted
(19:15):
equal marriage rights. So seventeen and a half years full
time public service and I was a second class citizen
to every one of my straight colleagues.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
In twenty fourteen, Mayor and niece Parker managed to pass
a signature piece of equal rights legislation. It was called
the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance or HERO. It guaranteed protections
against discrimination for minorities ranging from veterans to pregnant women.
Most of those groups were already protected under federal law,
(19:49):
but Mayor Parker's legislation extended it to one group that
didn't have any federal protections, LGBTQ people. But she was
up against fierce resistance. Opponents of the law, which included
several religious groups, took issues with protections for transgender people specifically,
(20:12):
and once the law passed, they sued in hopes of
repealing it.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
No one had any protections, so we were putting African
Americans and immigrants and you know, women and people with
disabilities because this would allow a local ordinance for the
first time to protect them also. And I thought, you know,
it's not going to be about my community. It's not
(20:38):
going to be about the algeb. It's going to be
about doing the right thing for all of Houston. And
then we passed the ordinance and the only thing that
the anti groups were focused on was trans rites And
in fact, the organizers of the resistance actually came to
city Council before we passed the ordinance and said in
(20:59):
chamber on camera, if you will remove all trans protections,
we will allow the ordinance to go forward. No, that's
not how this is gonna work. We're not gonna throw
one group under the bus. This is an ordinance for everyone.
And then the anti folks organized a petition drive to
(21:21):
repeal it, and the State Supreme Court said something to
the effect, city you need to either repeal it or
put it on the ballot for a vote. We refuse
to repeal it, and so we went to a vote,
the Hero vote us napel Rights ordinances. The Hero vote
was the first real public vote on something after the
(21:46):
Supreme Court ruled on marriage that year, and it was
fueled by national money. It was essentially a national outpoorting
of anger from the right about a whole lot of
changes that were happening socially, and this was a place
(22:06):
where they could dig into it. And interesting fact, you know,
they were running ads about little girls being raped in
bathrooms by straight people going into women's bathrooms. All they
cared about was those images of you know, a little
girl being assaulted in a bathroom. That I mean, horrible commercial.
(22:28):
And it went down in defeat.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
What did that feel like personally for you to lose
that battle?
Speaker 2 (22:37):
And I was hurt and angry and frustrated. I took
it very personally. And the Hero Ordinance vote, this was
after I had already been again elected nine times by
these same people who turned around and said, yeah, you know,
you're hey, we love you as mayor, but you shouldn't
(22:57):
have civil rights protections.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Due to term limits, mayor a niece, Parker couldn't run
for a fourth term, so in twenty sixteen, she finished
her term and became the president of what is now
called the LGBTQ Victory Fund, a political organization with the
mission of electing LGBTQ people to public office at every level.
(23:39):
She announced this year that after leading the Victory Fund
for seven years, she was going to step down. According
to their annual report, Mayor Parker helped nearly triple the
amount of queer elected officials across the United States, from
mayors to congress people to governors. But her victory is
(24:01):
there were inspired by one of her biggest losses, the
Equality Ordinance. How did that loss, which seems like it
was a profound loss for you, how did that really
shape you?
Speaker 2 (24:19):
It reinforced to me the importance of individuals standing up
and speaking out. And so I took the high and
the low and decided that what I needed to do
next was go back to my roots and become an
(24:40):
activist again, which is essentially what I've done through the
LGBTQ Victory Fund and Victory Institute, and that is helping
other people navigate the political process so they can be
in the room where decisions are made. But also, you know,
(25:00):
even even a losing campaign, when when an out person
somewhere across the country stands up and says, this is
who I am. I want to serve you. This is
the issue. These are the issues I want to work on,
whether they're successful as a candidate or not. They're changing
hearts in minds, and the fact that the opposition is
(25:21):
getting more and more ugly and virulent. It's just a
factor of our success. If we weren't, if we weren't winning,
if we weren't changing hearts and minds, folks on the
hard right would not be coming at us.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
You're about to step down from the LGBTQ Victory Fund
after leading it for several years, and it feels like
that's an intentional decision to make way for a new
generation of LGBTQ leaders. And this show is about passing
(25:58):
down thing from one generation of queer people to the next.
And so what do you hope to pass down to
the next generation of queer leaders that are fighting for
equality just as you've done almost your whole life.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
What I am leaving is a strong and vibrant organization
that is still very relevant to what's happening politically today.
And the advice I would offer to my successor is that,
unfortunately lgbt rights are under attack in ways that they
(26:39):
haven't been in decades. Do not fall into the trap
of saying those people we have to write off. Those
people are still our There are still our parents, our
brothers and sisters, our cousins, our family members. We have
to stay in and remind them that the soh they
(27:01):
attack us, one we're going to persevere, and two we're
going to win in the end. But they have to
see us as full human beings, and the only way
they do that is by us being out and visible
and present in front of them.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Why do you think it's important for queer people and
queer young people to get involved in politics? And this
is after you've had a really decorated career in politics.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Just because you don't care about politics doesn't mean that
politics doesn't care about you. It doesn't influence your life.
And we have not just a responsibility or a right,
we have an obligation to be involved in that. Unless
(27:58):
you have someone in the room where a decision is
actually made and put on paper and made into law,
you have nothing. And we have to be in a
position we, those of us who are lgbt have to
be in those rooms. Democracy is better and stronger and
functions wholly when everyone is represented, and that includes the
(28:21):
LGBTQ community, and I don't want to be talked about.
I want to be spoken with, and so when I
am in the room, they have to speak with me.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
I just want to say, it's just amazing to meet you.
You I think have shaped so much of my own life.
My father and mother were I honestly think you were
probably one of the first gay people they ever saw
in public life, and I think to see someone so
(28:53):
poised and accomplished it sort of in a way way
years later, prepared them to think, oh, wow, like I
think my son could could be someone like that one day.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Now. When I first became a council member, I heard from,
you know, gay folks in city government. I would get
on an elevator in city Hall and someone would jump
on the elevator with me and they would whisper to
me that they were okay tow and they really appreciated
me being there. When I became mayor, I started hearing
(29:28):
from parents that my success gave them a different image
of what was possible for their children. And I had
a lot of parents say that that I gave them
them hope, and that is that is one of the
best things to take away from my time in als.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
But we Loved is hosted by me Jordan Gonsolves. New
episodes drop every Wednesday. If you want to write in
to tell your story, email us at but Weloved at
gmail dot com or send us a message on Instagram
or TikTok at but We Loved. We are a production
of The Outspoken Podcast Network and iHeart Podcasts. But We
(30:25):
Loved was originally developed with Pushkin Industries. Our producers Areshena Ozaki,
Michael June, Emily Meronoff, and Joey patt Our. Executive producers
are Me Maya Howard. Fact checking by Marisa Brown. Original
music by Steve Bone. Special thanks to Jay Bronson and
Rock kel Willis. If you loved this episode, leave us
(30:48):
a rating and follow us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify,
and thank you for listening. I'll see you next week.
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