Michelle Dech, July 31, 2020

Michelle Dech2020-07-31

LIZ BRADBURY: Now I'm going to record. I also have an audio recording as a

backup in case of messing up or something happening. Yesterday, for whatever

happened, and this is the first time it's happened, the Zoom signal dropped

three times during the interview, and I have no idea whether it was that

person's thing. Then I -- or whether it was my connection, although I don't

think it was, but I don't know what was happening. But I haven't had that happen

at all, and then it happened a whole bunch of times which is, you know, my

biggest fear, that I'm going to be doing a training and it'll go off, and I

don't even --

MICHELLE DECH: Absolutely.

LB: You know, and people are like -- Okay, so now I have to start this again,

ugh. Let's see. With this project Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center, the

Trexler Library of Muhlenberg College will collaborate on forty years of public

health experiences in Lehigh Valley LGBT community, collecting and curating

local LGBT experiences 00:01:00from HIV/ADS to COVID-19. My name is Liz Bradbury, and

I'm here with Michelle Dech to talk about her experiences in the greater Lehigh

Valley LGBT community during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic as part of the

Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive. We're meeting on Zoom on July 31, 2020.

Thank you so much for -- I have to be sure the recording light's on, yes. Thank

you so much for your willingness to speak with us today. To start, could you

please state your full name and spell it for me>

MD: Sure, you're welcome, Liz, and thank you for having me. My name is Michelle,

two Ls, and M-I-C-H-E-L-L-E. Last name is Dech, D-E-C-H.

LB: And will you please share your birthdate?

MD: March 28, 1966, but don't tell anyone.

LB: Somebody I interviewed yesterday has your exact same birthday.

MD: Wow, wow.

LB: Interesting. Sure, 00:02:00yeah. So what town are you in?

MD: I'm in Reading, Pennsylvania.

LB: And now it says check to be sure it's really recording. Yes, okay. So, this

is a consent portion. Do you consent to this interview today?

MD: Yes, I do.

LB: Great. Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitized,

and made publicly available online in searchable formats?

MD: Yes.

LB: Do you consent to the LGBT Archive using your interview for educational

purposes in other formats including films, articles, websites, presentations,

and other formats we may not even know about today?

MD: Yes, I do.

LB: Do you understand that you will have thirty days after the electronic

delivery of the transcript to review your interview, identify any parts you'd

like to delete, and/or you could withdraw your entire interview from the project?

MD: Yes.

LB: What zip code are you in?

MD: 00:03:00 19605.

LB: Now, it does say what is your age?

MD: Fifty-four.

LB: Okay. Ah, you're a baby. I guess that's an ageist thing to say, so that's

kind of rude. But how do you identify within the LGBT community, trans, gay,

lesbian, bi, pan?

MD: Lesbian.

LB: Okay. And cisgender?

MD: Yes.

LB: Here are some things. So this is all things that we -- I already wrote you

about. You can think about things in general, but we worked -- we just began

talking about our concerns about other places, and you were talking about your

mother being in Florida. So, go on with that.

MD: Yes, thank you. So yes, my mother's in Florida. She lives in Port Orange,

which is just south of Daytona Beach. And I'm pretty concerned obviously.

Florida right now is the hot spot, one of the hot spots in the United States.

And you know, she's certainly a high-risk category. She's in her mid-seventies.

And her health 00:04:00is fair. So even going to the grocery store poses a great risk

for her. And so it's been a little difficult to be here and not really be able

to -- you know, we're close, but living far apart is difficult at this time. And

so you know, when this pandemic began really raging through the states it was

located more in the northeast with the higher numbers and whatnot. It was New

York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, high numbers. And Florida wasn't seeing that at

that point. And you know, I had some conversations with her then trying to share

the information along the, you know, this'll be your way. It's coming. Right now

it's on us. And she, like many people, had the thought process of I can't stop

living my life, and she actually still works. She's a hairdresser, and she works

within 00:05:00her retirement community. And so she said I have these people that I

serve, and I can't just stop life. However, since the flow has now turned the

tide and Florida is a hotspot she's backtracked on a lot of that, and I'm

thankful that she recognizes how deadly this can be and dangerous it is, but

it's just affected everything that we're doing. I mean, personally,

professionally across the board.

LB: Yeah, so we have a place in Amelia Island, Florida. And so that's just up

the coast from Daytona. And it is interesting because we have a niece and nephew

there who are actually older than Trish. Trish's niece and nephew. And they --

while they know and they're being quite careful because they're very at risk,

particularly the niece, they're married to each other, 00:06:00that they say they don't

know anybody who has had this, and truthfully that's not really true. I mean,

there's no way that they don't know anybody. It's just that Florida there's a

concerted effort to underreport everything that's happening. And yet, you know,

they're having what, fifteen-thousand new -- it's some huge number a day of new

cases. I think it was one thousand nine hundred new cases a day and throughout

the state. It's a very big state, but it's happening all over the state. And

we've had -- heard directly from people we really know about direct harassment

of people who were wearing masks, like young people who were wearing masks where

people would come up and drive up to them and scream at them and try to pull off

their masks and spit on them and stuff. It's just 00:07:00ridiculous, crazy stuff in

this little town where we have a condo. Like, really?

MD: Yeah, that's crazy. And frightening, right? I mean, it's frightening enough

this whole pandemic by itself carries a lot of fear of what it can do, but then

you have people that are -- it's almost willful ignorance to a point with the

masks, in my opinion, with the masks. You know, when you choose specifically not

to do so, I just don't, I don't get it. I truly don't understand. You know, I've

had some friends that were anti-mask and still are anti-mask and a few

conversations, and it's been interesting to see. I can honestly say that there

seems to be a whole different culture right now that's just, the meanness, the

anger, the hatred, the bigotry. 00:08:00It's like everybody's gotten a license to just

let loose, and, you know, it's ugly. It's really ugly. And I think it can be

overwhelming, even for mental health, for people that suffer from mental health

disparities and whatnot. This adds a whole other element to it. And then you

also have people that are anti-mask, and they're really been disparaging to

other people. I don't understand. It's overwhelming. I can't see the light at

the end of the tunnel yet, and that's frightening for me, honestly.

LB: I think you should describe your position in the LGBT community, because

you're certainly in a position of leadership. So talk about what your job is there.

MD: Sure, so I'm the executive director of the LGBT Center of Greater Reading.

I've been in this position for just two years now. And boy, it's been an

interesting 00:09:00ride. You know, we've been fortunate to see exponential growth

within our organization over the last few years, and then COVID hit. And so

that's presented some new challenges for us and for me personally. So, but we

love what we do. Our mission is strong. We're making some great progress,

serving a lot of different people, and I think that even more so now people are

in need across the board. So we're here, we're not going anywhere. We've been

open through this, and when I say open I mean we moved everything to avirtual platform.

So we've been serving the community that way, and we just did recently allow our

youth program -- we meet two days a week with youth. And we have been doing them

Tuesdays and Thursdays via Zoom. And so I jumped on one of their Zoom meetings a

few weeks 00:10:00ago and just kind of get caught up and see how everyone was doing. And

I kind of floated the idea of what would you think about coming back on site one

day a week, just one day following social distancing protocol? And oh my gosh,

they jumped at this. They were just so anxious. And they're kids that are in

unsupportive homes. So to get them out for an hour here, it outweighs anything

else right now for us. So we made the decision to do that, and hopefully it's

making an impact on them. And it's been a challenge, as I've said a few times

now. Social distancing protocols, but we've got everything in place, and

everybody has been willing to follow those without issue. So that's the only

thing that we're doing in the center right now. I mean I'm here every day

working, 00:11:00but that's the only thing that we're really open to do at this point.

We were hoping for something maybe in August or September, but it's not looking

so good right now, no, yeah. So yeah.

LB: Trish was at the doctor a couple days ago, who was in Bethlehem, and Trish

was talking about, you know, they're talking about opening the schools. And

Bethlehem school district is still talking about that, and the doctor said

they're not going to open the schools. They're just not. It's not going to

happen. So stop worrying about it. It's not going to happen. Because it's just

the numbers will go up, and we've already seen that. So how can they possibly

justify that for young people in a school situation, particularly in school

situations where because of the lack of funding for the inner city schools in

both Bethlehem and Allentown they have very crowded -- they don't have air

conditioning. In the 00:12:00summer when it's very hot they put people, large, large

numbers of youth, into small areas where there's air conditioning to combat the

fact that some of the rooms don't have air conditioning. I was interviewing

somebody who was a (inaudible) teacher, and he said there's just no way they can

do this. And he gave me all these reasons. One of the things was he said, he was

a music teacher, and in an eight-day period he comes in contact with every

single student at the school.

MD: Wow.

LB: So I mean, not only would he be at risk, but if he were positive he could be

commuting this to every single kid. And he said how do I not do that? And he

said as a music teacher, what do we teach them? I can't do singing. We can't

have percussion instruments because there's a rule that you can't hand out

things to everybody. You can hand out two items and then clean them. So he said

what do you do? It's like you hand out, like, two maracas. And then what do you 00:13:00do in the classroom? What, do I show a video? We can do that online. We can just

have them go online to do that. So he said it's a ridiculous situation. It's not

going to work for lots of kids. There's some programs maybe that could work, and

I talked to somebody yesterday whose school system is saying that they're going

to open, but they're not going to open. They're just not. I mean, they might

have some kind of thing, but they're having her do, the youth do sports practice

because she's on a team, and she's going every day for that and wearing a mask

outside running around. And, you know, you can do that. It's not that hard to do

that. But that's outside. And it's risky. I mean, this person was saying she's

older. She's over fifty. And she's saying you know, it's scary when she 00:14:00 comes

back because she's been with all these kids. And they're not little. In some

instances they're saying little kids might be less likely to have it, but she's

fourteen. She might as well be an adult. This is not a little (inaudible).

MD: Yeah, I mean, think about major league baseball. To me that was a good

example of the school system to a degree of they started back. They gave it a

shot. Without fans they opened up their seasons, and I'm speaking just of the

Phillies in particular because my wife is a huge Phillies fan, so I know this

stuff. But they started, had one game, and it all came crashing down now because

they had many players that, I guess from the team that they were playing that --

it might have been the marlins from Florida, actually or someone. But anyway,

they contracted it, and now Phillies players have it. They're testing, and

there's a new one every day that tests positive. So they 00:15:00started the season and

already it's stopped. It's halted. They've had to halt their season. To me with

school if they do attempt to go back, I mean, Reading's saying the same thing.

They've offered three different potential platforms to go on. One is obviously

back in full onsite. One is a hybrid where it's half and half, and the other is

online. And Reading High is enormous. I mean, thousands and thousands of kids in

this high school. So, if they do get to that point to go back I believe it's

only going to be a short time until it rages within the schools. And they're

going to have to go backward anyway. So we'll see, but you're right, I don't see

how it's even possible to do that. It really -- and why even attempt that? Why

even take that risk, I guess, you know?

LB: I mean, we can't get people in a store who are in a store for twenty minutes 00:16:00to wear masks. How are we going to get three thousand teenagers to wear masks?

MD: Exactly.

LB: And not talk close to each other.

MD: Right, I was going to say and stay away from each other, yeah.

LB: And they're overcrowded anyway. But the terrible thing is, and it's

definitely true for Reading and Allentown, they're both similar in that the

funding for people in terms of, you know, somebody like in the Parkland High

School system or maybe West Reading or some other more affluent areas where

everybody has internet access, everybody has a computer, everybody has, or

almost everybody. And then you have Allentown school district where a huge

number of Reading (inaudible) who are a large, large number of people's families

are essential workers. They may be traveling into New York to work or something

like that because they travel long distance or into Philadelphia. And they don't

have internet access. There's just no internet 00:17:00access. So I could say well, you

know, the kids can do this on computer. Well, that's fine for a bunch of rich

kids who have computers or even middle income, but when you're talking about the

circumstance of Reading where you have the least likely areas of places both in

Allentown and Reading where people are going to be in whole areas where they're

not going to be able to access computers at all. They don't have them, you know.

MD: Absolutely. Like I said, it's just, it's affecting every aspect, I think, of

everything we do. So it's certainly been an eye-opener. I got to tell you. I

never in my wildest dreams imagined that we'd be going through something like

this, although I guess when I take a real hard look at it I'm not surprised. The

writing's been on the wall, you know. But yeah, it's been an interesting ride.

LB: Yeah. Wow. So who is at home with you? When you're at home you have who else

in the household?

MD: 00:18:00So my wife and I are there, and we have a cat. So it's the three of us, and

she works for Johnson and Johnson and is working from home now pretty much one

hundred percent, and I know for that company they've done a lot of -- and

they're in the heart of this. Of course studying and in the race for vaccine and

working in that capacity. I mean, that's a huge organization, Johnson and

Johnson, with a lot of affiliates. And they're going back at, like, fifteen

percent. A few people are trickling in because it's necessary that we've got

some people on site there, you know, that they can do that. But for the most

part everybody is working from home. So that's been a big adjustment because I

too was workig for home during the heat of this. So the two of us were working

from home, and I used to think we needed to downsize, our house was too big for

us, 00:19:00but after both being home every day we're day -- no, I'm just kidding. So

I'm fortunate enough that I can come to my office and at least get out a little

bit and do some work here. But we're just grateful that we're both able to

continue to work. A lot of friends of ours and family have lost their jobs or

were furloughed and haven't been called back. We've been very fortunate in all

of this. So we're blessed.

LB: Here's an interesting piece of information. I was interviewing Steve Libby

and Gary Gaugler yesterday, and they produce Gaydar or (overlapping dialogue;

inaudible) magazine, and they also have regular day jobs. And Gary's job is at a

big factory. It's a very, very big factory, one of the biggest producers of

certain kind of pipe fighting sort of stuff that they've convinced the world is

essential workers because they produce sprinkler heads and stuff like that.

Although they don't produce them, 00:20:00according to Gary, in Pennsylvania. So, but

he's in a huge factory. And he's worked there for a long time. He's worked there

for fourteen years. And apparently they're requiring everyone to come back even

though people working from home have actually increased productivity of the

ability to get this work done. And it's interesting too. I think that, you know,

when you're going to your office to work you're working when you're at work.

When you're at home you're working when you're working.

MD: Exactly.

LB: And so it's actually more productivity. So but they're still requiring

everybody to come back because there is apparently, because of certain funding

and grants, and since they've talked people into believing that they're an

essential company, they can only get huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge

beneficial 00:21:00loans, which they're not really due apparently, unless they have 100

percent of the workforce come back.

MD: Oh wow.

LB: So they're forcing one hundred percent of the workforce to come back even

though there's no reason for them go come back. They're actually doing a better

job at home. They're safer at home. And they said if you don't come back it's

your resignation because, the implication is, that this is a privately held

company, they will get millions and millions and millions of dollars of loans of

our tax money if they make everybody come back even though they really don't

need to. And apparently, and I've heard from several people that that's an issue

all over the country. So good for Johnson and Johnson because they would be in

that position too probably.

MD: I would think.

LB: 00:22:00But it sounds as though they are making a very intelligent effort to

understand that it's not going to help productivity. It's going to make some

people leave their jobs. I've talked to at least three people. For COVID, this

is my twentieth interview. I've actually interviewed a couple of couples. Our

grant was to interview twenty people who are for the COVID interviews, and ten

for HIV/AIDS, so people who lived through the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and

ninties. So I did those first. I'm not -- so this is thirty. And I talked to

those people about COVID too. And I've talked to a number of people who actually

actively quit a job that they had been in for a long time where they were making

good money and doing good stuff because it was too dangerous there and their

company was forcing them to do something that 00:23:00was very, very risky. Even people

who, I mean, I can think of four people that I've interviewed that have said

yeah, I left this job. I was in management, and I just, they were making me do

things. It was putting other people at risk. I couldn't do it. And so I just

quit. It's an interesting thing to have that level of ethics.

MD: I mean, I guess my question on all of that, and I knew that there were some

companies that were doing that, of course. I don't think I knew it was

widespread. But I'm not surprised, yeah. But I guess the first thing that my

mind goes to is there's got to be some kind of liability there I would think. If

you're forced into coming back and you contract this and that can be traced to

you going back for that, does the liability outweigh the -- you know, I mean,

where do you draw the line? Where do you ethically 00:24:00 --

LB: Well, there's no question that these people have said I've reported this

company over and over again. We've talked to somebody whose -- I talked to the

mother of a person who's very, very at risk, and she's considered an essential

worker because she's a waitress. I mean because she's a good server, and the mom

that I was speaking to is part of our long-term LGBT support allies who ran

PFLAG in the Strasburg area for years and still does, for years and years and

years, said that her daughter is really, really at risk. She has a congenital

heart issue and stuff like that. And they said you have to come in. And she said

you're not following any of the protocols. You people aren't wearing masks.

You're not asking people to wear a mask. I mean, talk about a dangerous

circumstance where a waitress is going from table to table.

MD: Absolutely. How?

LB: (inaudible) imagine that and to know that behind the scenes no one is

wearing a mask, no one's wearing a mask in the 00:25:00kitchen. It's just a cesspool of

danger. And then yet if she says I'm not going to come in anymore they say well,

that's your resignation, then she won't get unemployment. She's resigning. She's

quitting her job. And how stressful that is for this mom who's saying -- and

it's not like she's making tons of money. It's not like she's a doctor and she's

making one hundred thousand dollars or three hundred thousand a year or two

hundred thousand or even a nurse who's getting a pretty good living wage and

making fifty thousand dollars or sixty thousand dollars a year. This person is

making what, you know, less than poverty rate and probably significantly less

because less people are going to restaurants.

I mean, it seems to a lot of people who are staying home that everybody's out

there going to work except for people who are staying home. And everybody that

I've interviewed are drastically staying home. And it's a wide variety of 00:26:00people, different ages, different demographics, different races, different

socioeconomic circumstances, and different parts of the queer community. And

they were all staying home. They're all really avoiding it. They're not going to

bars. They're not going to restaurants. They're very, very concerned they're

developing agoraphobia. You know, the whole thing. And they think that everybody

else is going out. Because they're not going out they can't see. Truthfully

that's not really happening so that when people go to a restaurant they say we

were the only ones in the restaurant. And it still wasn't comfortable, you know.

So we wonder. We're not going to go back. And I talked to one guy, [Bob

Jacobs?], or he posted that he was in a restaurant in Palmerton. And he said the

waitress came to the table without a mask on.

MD: Oh wow.

LB: You know what I mean? Like, really? 00:27:00And the first thing that Trish did, said

was did he stay there? I mean, I would just get up and walk out.

MD: Exactly, that's what I was thinking.

LB: So but I know that there's some people, there's some restaurants that think

that this is exactly the way to be, and we've heard about that and stuff like that.

MD: I think that it's pretty incredible, if you really think about this. You

were talking about the waitress that had to resign from the job or, you know,

was forced to basically resign, and those people that we consider essential

workers, right, the value that we placed on them previously, just from my

opinion, was low. We didn't really value what they do. Maybe we didn't

understand fully all that they put on the line every day. So I think this has

been a great opportunity. It's one of the better things that, for me anyway,

that's come out of this is it really helped me o pause for a minute and take a 00:28:00look at well -- and not that I treated anyone poorly at all or thought of anyone

any differently, but I think our essential workers, we take them for granted. We

totally take them for granted. They're paid peanuts. Most of our essential

workers are paid poverty line salaries. And we've got others that are doing jobs

making lots of money that really there's such an imbalance. And this is really,

I think, given us a good baseline to work off of, you know, we really need to

think about this and restructure how we're doing things and put some value and

pay people for that value and what they're bringing to the table. And shame on

us that it's taken us all this time and a pandemic to maybe get a few of us to

take a hard look and say that we need to change this. We truly need to step up

and make some 00:29:00 changes.

LB: And you know, think about increasing the minimum wage, increasing the

circumstance of universal healthcare because in many ways that was the

perpetuation of the pandemic from the beginning, that people couldn't take time

off because they didn't have healthcare or they didn't have time off with

healthcare. If they took days off for being sick they just wouldn't be paid. And

so they chose not to do that because they couldn't afford to take four days off

of work because they were coughing. And wait a minute. You know, that was one of

the big perpetrators and the amplifiers of the virus at the beginning. And so we

can see that now. It's trackable. And to say that that wasn't true is just

putting your head in the sand. So you were just 00:30:00saying you're over Zoom, and I

know you're not really because you're doing it all the time. But talk about that

a little bit because I'm sure that you're doing tons of Zoom work and other

kinds of communications like that.

MD: Yes, absolutely. We are. And I will be very honest with you, when this

started and we had to pivot to something different, a platform, I didn't ever

hear of Zoom at all. Never hear of it. Really hadn't had any experience with it.

So it was a learning curve for me, especially, you know, I'm a little older, so

not using that as an excuse by any means, but technology today is sometimes way

beyond me. So I was a little bit nervous about it, and quite frankly it was

easier than I thought it was going to be, but I'm still learning every day. Zoom

has different features that we can do and things to use. But what we're seeing,

and what I'm hearing from the community 00:31:00is everybody pivoted to virtual

platforms, whether it was Zoom or Microsoft Teams, whatever it may be, which is,

it's excellent. I mean, we all had to in order to survive at all and to keep

serving. However in doing so we oversaturated our community right now with

information and events.

And so I started hearing from different people that were on a lot of our events

and a lot of different things, programming that we offered, and we started doing

a little bit of a poll after each one, you know, just your normal, regular poll

of was this impactful for you? And one of the questions we asked was, you know,

how was your experience using Zoom? And some of the responses we got back really

spoke to Zoom fatigue. Like, I enjoyed it, but I have to be honest with you,

it's Zoom fatigue right now. There's just so much going on. 00:32:00And one of the

comments we had was from somebody that actually volunteers for us but who was on

as somebody who was just on to sign in and see what we were doing and to

participate. And she said to me, she said you know, the event was great. The

programming was awesome. But I have to admit a few times I found myself just

kind of off and, you know, gazing out the window or something. And she said it

had nothing to do with what you were producing but really more with just the

same sitting and watching a computer screen. And I think a lot of us, those of

us who were able to continue working. And especially, like a great example is my

wife, okay. She works all day long on the computer, and they have Zoom meetings

all day long. And so they're doing that 00:33:00seven out of eight hours of the day. And

then in the evening I say oh, we've got an event tonight or we're doing this

tonight, and it's Zoom, and you know, she said to me oh my gosh, I just spent

seven hours staring at that computer screen. I don't know if I can do two hours

tonight on top of it yet. So it's really not about what we're offering and what

we're doing. It's more about people just being Zoomed out, so to speak. And you

know, summer, I think summertime too there are people that are tempting fate,

and they are vacationing, not at the rates that we typically vacation, so I

think in a combination of summer and Zoom fatigue we're not seeing as much

activity as we had been initially.

And I think that's, for our organization, though, I'm not sure for you guys up

there in Allentown, but for our organization that's kind of typical of what

we've seen over the last couple years, that summer's a little tougher, you 00:34:00 know,

as far as participation goes. We still have people, but it's definitely a little

bit lighter. So yeah, so Zoom was interesting. It's been a blessing, thankfully,

that we can at least have that kind of communication and gathering, so to speak.

So we're lucky.

LB: Yeah, I'm on the statewide task force for Alzheimer's and related disease.

It's a government task force, a governor's task force, and I've been serving on

that for quite a few years, and yesterday morning I was at a conference. I did a

conference in Harrisburg. So normally I would have had to go to Harrisburg to do

this, and I've done that many times. And it started at ten, but they usually

have a check-in at nine for the commissioners, or whatever it's called, the

committee members. And so I would have to get up and leave at, you 00:35:00know, what,

six thirty to be sure that I got there through rush hour. I'm so paranoid that

I'm going to get stuck in traffic. So I'd leave at six thirty, and I'd be there.

They'd have a horrible lunch that I really couldn't eat, that just wouldn't fit

into my needs. And then I would be there, and then (inaudible). I'd get home by

the end of the day. I'd get home by five even though it ended at noon.

MD: Wow.

LB: Because, you know, it just takes forever to do that. And so it was joyous

for me to not have to do that. The problem was that they did the meeting on

Skype. And it was some kind of Skype for business or something, and my

connection with them dropped three times during the meeting. I couldn't see

anybody. I couldn't do it on my computer because my computer's a little too old

to run Skype. I have no problem with Zoom. So I had to do it on my iPad, but my

iPad doesn't allow you to see the gallery 00:36:00view. You can only see with this Skype

-- with Skype with business. For some reason you can't do it. And they kept

saying well, you just click on the top button. I said yeah, it's not there on

iPad. And then somebody else said yeah, it's not there on iPad. It doesn't work

on iPad. You can see us. So I can only see the person. So the frustration of

that aspect of it and the lack of ability to network and stuff was lost. So

there was a real seesaw of like, yippee, I don't have to drive to Harrisburg and

spend twelve hours doing that and gas and all that stress, and it's long day.

And then the next day you're kind of messed up and you miss everything. It's the

(inaudible) stuff. But then the other hand is that the meeting in many ways

wasn't very successful. And I was talking to somebody who is actually running,

he's in charge of a big bed and breakfast, historic bed and breakfast 00:37:00 in

Bethlehem, and she's been working all the way through, but at times she was

running the entire thing herself, making the breakfast, cleaning the rooms,

because she had to lay off her people. And they still had people. And then they

asked her to actually house doctors who didn't want to go home and potentially

infect their families. And she said, you know, I'm at really high risk, so I'm

thinking do I want to do this? (inaudible) this whole thing. But they do have,

she has a board and she has whole bunch of people. It's actually not for profit,

and there's all kinds of stuff. And she said we've had so many Zoom meetings

that I got off a meeting and think that could have been done with a text.

MD: Absolutely. I'm finding the same thing. And you know, one thing that

concerns me through all this and has been a concern from day one, this

technology is great. Don't get me wrong. Like you said, it's a seesaw, right. I

mean, it's the 00:38:00opportunity to get in touch with people and actually see a face

and whatnot. But as you well know, the queer community in general, there's a lot

of us that are isolated under regular circumstances, normal circumstances,

right, and many don't have a computer. Many don't have internet. And so there is

a huge group of people, chunk of people that we're missing in serving right now.

You know, we were doing some calls. I have some volunteers that were making

calls from home just checking on people.

But it's really limiting. And it's frightening for those of us that are serving

those people and those that are suffering through it. It's great, but not

everybody's able to do that. I mean, there's one gentleman that we serve in

particular, he is disabled, but he gets around pretty well. And he has a flip

phone, an old flip phone. And he said I 00:39:00think I'm going to buy a computer, and

I'm going to try this Zoom stuff. And I said well, I'll have somebody else help

you because forget it for me. Fucking, I can't do that for you. But he did. I

mean, he invested in the computer, and we had some help to get him set up, and

that's wonderful. But most people aren't in a position to do that. And so you

know, it's really frightening and challenging of how do we serve those that are

even more isolated now and suffering from mental illness and what not to begin with?

And speaking on that, I guess I sound like Debbie Downer today, and I don't mean

that at all. However, one thing that I think is important to know and that I've

discovered through all this, and I'm just going to be authentic and put it out

here, be vulnerable in this, you 00:40:00know, personally I've been fortunate enough

never really to suffer from anxiety or depression, other than, you know, you

have a bad day once in a while. But I have to be honest with you, I'm starting

to feel a little bit overwhelmed in all of this, and not about what we're doing

as an organization or even me personally at home or anything like that. I just

mean the state that we're in right now, and if I'm feeling that way I know that

others are feeling the same, and there are people who have been long-term

suffers of depression and anxiety their whole lives. And I can't even imagine

what they're feeling now, you know. This has also been something that has caused

me to pause and say, you know, wow. I have a new appreciation for those that

suffer from 00:41:00these things and what they must go through every day. And so it's

been interesting. And it's been an eye-opener in a lot of ways. So I like to

think there's some good that comes out of everything and things happen for a

reason and all those things. So I'm hopeful, but I believe in all of that unless

it's politics. Then I don't know why this happened right now. Right?

LB: There's no reason for this, all this stuff that's happening (inaudible)

mitigated (inaudible) easily. And it has been in many other countries. There's

no question about that. I was talking to somebody yesterday whose wife is from

New Zealand, which, they totally absolutely one hundred percent controlled the

virus. No one has it. No one's at risk for it. They did it by intelligent

lockdown and then just limiting people who come into the country. If they do

come into the 00:42:00country they have to be quarantined for two weeks. They just do it

that way, and you know, everybody wears a mask. That's the deal. Then they did

that. Now nobody has it, and they're back to normal except they don't have any

tourism, which is a big influx of cash for that country. But the leader of the

country is brilliant, brilliant woman who made the intelligent decisions to do

the right thing.

And here's a, you know, since you were talking about that in terms of that

isolation, and I frequently an older person, and I've been running these

different groups in Allentown for twenty-five years, that we always had people

who would be like, they really like the Valley Gay Press when we mailed it to

them, and then when we said well, you know, people said you could do this

online, I could say well, yeah, but we have a significant number of people who

don't have that capability, and a lot of younger believe or 00:43:00people who are not

at the nuts and bolts level of an organization believe that everyone is online,

everyone can access information with their phone, everyone can get an email.

Well, at least you can get an email. It's like, you know, really the people --

MD: That's not the case.

LB: -- the most vulnerable people who are the people we should do the most to

serve, are the ones we can't serve that way. And I've had far more info

(inaudible) calls. We've been running that for 25 years. So but one thing that

happened, and this is true. We have a book club or a book group, community

group. And we averaged about like nine or ten, maybe eight or nine people, ten

people sometimes. We've had meetings with fifteen people, and some of the

people, I said to Trish I just saw so-and-so. I haven't 00:44:00seen her for four years.

MD: Wow.

LB: And I really think she's not comfortable going out to groups, but, you know,

you're really in control on a Zoom call. Because you want to leave, you don't

even have to excuse yourself.

MD: You're right. You just hit that little button. And you can turn yourself

off. Yeah, you don't have to be on camera, yeah.

LB: Totally in control. You don't have to care. But you can say well, I can only

phone in, so I don't want people to see me, you know. And so some of our groups,

we've given our groups, I'll say a lot of different groups, the opportunity to

decide whether they want to meet in public because we have a big enough space

that we can fit about twenty people still six feet from each other. I wouldn't

do it though. I wouldn't go in. I'm too much at risk. And Trish is too much at

risk. So I wouldn't do it. And I won't run a group like that. 00:45:00So I mean it's

tough to ask people to do that. But several of the groups said no, we want to

keep doing it on Zoom because we're actually getting more people and different

people and people who aren't comfortable coming out. So that's been an

interesting thing, I think. It's both sides of the coin. It really is, you know.

But you're right about the ones who are really at risk. So when people call I

answer them because like, you know, and I'll talk to somebody for a long time

because I know many people are really isolated. And they have the same

situation. And the first thing I say is that, you know, can you go online? And

they'll frequently say well, yeah, they used to say I can go to the library and

do it.

MD: You know, I just had a conversation yesterday with another organization that

I can't announce yet, but they were looking to partner in what they're 00:46:00doing and

our end of it would simply be to provide space and a computer and social

distance protocol put into place where someone could come in to our location and

use that computer and the internet service that we provide in order to connect

with the other group if they don't have that at home. And you know, so I thought

you know what, that's probably a really great idea. And I looked over it and

gave it some thought and talking to our board about it. And if it can be done,

you know, obviously it needs to be done in a smart fashion, and since we are

actually closed technically we can provide a room. We've got several different

rooms that have doors and locks and whatnot, so someone could certainly come in

and utilize some of our equipment and our internet 00:47:00service to have this

appointment, and if they don't have tht option at home.

So I'm considering that, and again, it's a tough call of it's opening it up to

have somebody come in, and I don't know much about them and their background,

you know, those kinds of things. And even if you do know about them we don't

know who's been -- like I said, even going to the grocery store we're all at

risk. We've all been exposed one way or another, I think, so we're trying to

make these decisions on a really measured, slow progress of how do we still

serve people, and what's the best way to do that? So I really like that idea,

and I think that we could probably do that safely. And so we're probably going

to pursue that and maybe look to other places that might need a hand in that

way, do the same. So 00:48:00we're always evolving, and we're always seeking more. And

you mentioned the zoom thing, and you're right. It's a toss-up. We're doing

interviews right now for board positions that we have available, and we have

several applicants to see, and so I put out a note giving them the option. We

can meet via Zoom, or if you would prefer in-person we're considering how do we

do that, social distance. We have access to much larger rooms where we can

really spread some people out. And so out of so far I've called eight people.

There's more to call, but out of eight, seven requested in person.

LB: Really?

MD: Yes, one person said I just had surgery, I'd prefer to do Zoom. I couldn't

believe it, honestly. I was expecting it to be the opposite direction, most

people would want to do it Zoom. And 00:49:00so we held, last night we held four

interviews. And we had them spaced far enough, used a larger room, all social

distancing protocol in place, and one of the last people that we interviewed

said you know, I originally had typed out that I'd prefer to do this Zoom. And

she said but I changed my mind while I was typing. She said I personally just

needed to get out of my house and be around other people how be it wearing a

mask and sitting way further than six feet apart just to be in a room with some

other people. So when she left she said I really appreciated this time. She said

just knowing that we were going to do everything as safely as humanly possible.

And even that we realize, that's not one hundred percent. There's no guarantee,

you know. So going on that, 00:50:00it's I think people are starting to get desperate

for human connection in person, to be in a room. So I'm frightened about the

fall because I think summer right now, but you can at least take a walk. You can

take a bike ride. You can do things like that. It gets you out. But boy, when

the fall and winter hit on top of flu season, I think it might be a really

difficult time we're looking at ahead of us. So I hope that everybody's

preparing accordingly. I don't want to sound like the voice of doom today. I

feel like I do.

LB: I don't think that's unrealistic. I think that people have to recognize that

the way we're all behaving across the United States, I mean, as a collective

group, the likelihood of a second surge is so high. And it's true for other

major pandemics. It was true for the 00:51:00flu epidemic of 1918. I mean, the first

part, and that flu was so deadly, the first part was similar to what our first

part is. The second half was the killer. And they had to shut everything down.

Everybody knew someone who had died. And you know, millions and millions and

millions of people died. Fifty million people died in that flu. And so it's

really a thing that affected everybody. Nobody didn't know somebody who had -- I

mean, one out of three people in the world were sick from it. So everybody knew

somebody had it. And right a very few people or a lot of people don't know

somebody who has had it or has been seriously ill by it that's close to them.

It's potential that if we have a second wave, particularly with 00:52:00sending kids to

school -- and the only way where that's not going to happen is if we keep

everything shut down. So you're going to have to wonder, like, you know. But

there is a desperation. Human beings are social beings, and that's the deal.

What are you doing in terms of going out? Like, do you go to the store? What do

you do?

MD: So I'm being very cautious, obviously, and as far as the store, I'm a little

bit unique in that position where I hated the grocery store to begin with,

despised it, actually. My wife will tell you and my mother will tell you that I

have the MO of pulling them up to the front of the store and saying okay, I'll

be parked down there. Look for me when you're done. I am just not a grocery

store person. And oddly enough my father ran a grocery store for forty-one years.

LB: I think that's a connection there.

MD: Maybe, maybe. You know, he 00:53:00passed seven years ago, so I'm glad he's not

hearing me say this right now about hating the grocery stores. But I have been

in, of course. And I'm very cognizant about my surroundings and people coming

down the aisle that I'm in, and are they wearing a mask, are they not wearing a

mask? And I haven't really had any poor experience with that because it is

limited in the grocery store in particular. I will tell you that we have gone

out to eat twice, three times so far just recently. This is more recent. And

again, I've been fortunate that the waitress or waiter is wearing a mask, and

everybody seems to be following the protocol that's been in place. But I do know

that there are other people that have gone out, like you said, that waitresses

aren't wearing them. The servers are not social distancing. The cooks, if you 00:54:00get a quick glimpse into the back of the kitchen, I had a friend of mine who

said they went to a local chain restaurant outside. They were outside, which is

something I should say. We've been out. I've gone out to eat, but it's only been outside.

LB: Oh okay, yeah.

MD: So I haven't been in anywhere. But even outside, you know, walking to get

outside this friend of mine said he got a glimpse of the kitchen on the way out,

and he said he looked and no one was in a mask in the kitchen. And so he turned

around to the person that was seating him and he said, you know, I'm sorry, I

just saw that no one's wearing a mask back there, and I'm not comfortable with

that. So I'm going to take my business elsewhere, and he walked out. So I'm

getting out, nowhere near to the amount that I had been initially. You know,

this position, as you're well aware of, requires a lot of community engagement.

And so I'm an 00:55:00extravert by nature anyway, and with the position there was

something almost every night that I was doing, some kind of event, something to

attend. And that's been difficult for me. And I was tired, so the first two

weeks, Liz, of this whole thing I was like, huh, this is okay, you know. But

thinking that it's going to be over, right, in a few weeks.

So I got some rest, and I got caught up on some work and things like that and

did a couple things around the house. And then I found myself, like, twiddling

my thumbs of like, okay. Now what? I'm ready. Get me back in. So it's been

challenging to lead a normal life, as everybody else knows. So yeah. Much more

time to -- I'm reading more, which isn't a bad thing. Spending more time with my

wife, which is not a bad thing. 00:56:00And saving some money, actually, by being home

more. We just had that conversation last night of like hey, you know, we're

actually saving more money. So we're fortunate. I look at all the people, like I

said earlier, that don't have jobs. Some people have lost their homes, losing

their apartments, and so I'm faring very well. So I'm lucky.

LB: Yeah. Do you know anybody who's been sick from this or has died or --

MD: I do. And not direct family at all, but I've had two people that I know are

new that contracted it, and both have passed away from it.

LB: Oh my God.

MD: They were a little bit older than me. And yeah, and you know, until it

happens I think to someone you know, even if it's in the outer circle of

somebody you know, if it's a friend of a friend 00:57:00or a friend's family member,

something like that, I think it' more surreal. Until you can actually identify

somebody like oh my gosh, you know, she passed away with this. And you know, I

have a few friends that work in the medical field, and even my personal care

physician who I just saw a couple weeks ago, we talk. We're pretty tight. And

during that conversation I asked her what are you guys seeing? How does it look

for you? How do you feel about the future, the fall and whatnot? And I got to

tell you, it was probably one of the most profound conversations I've ever had

with her, and I've known her for eighteen years I've been going to the same

person. So we talk pretty freely and openly. And so she said to me, she said at

her practice there's a bunch of doctors, and they 00:58:00have to all take a rotation at

the hospital, local hospital, and the older physicians in that practice don't

have to do the COVID round because they're --

LB: At risk.

MD: -- more likely to be infected. So she didn't have to do the COVID round, but

she looked at me and she said you know, two months into this she said one of our

younger doctors did his COVID round in the hospital over the weekend. And she

said he came in on Monday, and she asked him all right, tell me, what did you

see? Where are we? How does this look? What can you bring back for us? And she

said she looked in his eyes and the look in his eyes, he was not the same

person, over the weekend. Like, she said he looked at her and he said I can't

even put into words what I witnessed this weekend. And this was at the height

when it was really bad here in 00:59:00Berks. And he went on to say that witnessing

several people pass away and the method and how this happens to people, it is

ugly. And it is frightening. And this is coming from -- and I think what moved

me the most was probably that this is coming from a doctor who's in there, who

puts their selves on the line every day. And when you have a physician that's

looking at you, and she said the look in his eyes was just amazing and

frightening. She said he's never going to be the same. He's never going to be

the same. You know, he said the process of dying from this that especially older

people are seeing and middle aged now too, it's not one of those things where --

no death if you're ill is pleasant, obviously. There's suffering and pain and whatever.

LB: Some people drift away.

MD: 01:00:00Exactly. Or there's a little morphine that they -- you know, depending upon

what they're suffering. This is not that. And this is really ugly and scary. And

to know that you can't be with the person, your family can't be there. And you

know, I don't know if you know this or not, but when this whole thing broke out,

I guess it was the beginning of April for us here, we had been quarantined for

like two weeks already, or stay-at-home orders for two weeks, my wife, in the

middle of the night, woke me up, which, I don't sleep well, so she doesn't ever

wake me up unless there's an emergency. So the minute I hear that I'm like

what's the matter? What's wrong? And she said I don't feel well. And so by the

time I sat up she was already seated on the floor against the bed. And so I said

what's going on? What's happening? And she said 01:01:00I'm dizzy. I have pain. I am

sweating. And I said oh my God, you're having a heart attack. Well, I need to

call 911. And she was adamant don't you dare touch that phone. Just give me a

minute to get myself together, you know.

And I ended up sitting on the floor with her for about forty-five minutes. I ran

downstairs and got a soda and got some kind of candy. She doesn't suffer from

any sugar issues, but I didn't know what to do to help and thought maybe that

could be. So she had a few sips of the soda and had the piece of candy, and we

sat there for forty-five minutes. And there was one point in time during that 45

minutes, and I really only mention this to good friends of ours, so I guess I'm

really going to blow it out here this way, but she got very quiet, you know. And

she just sat. And she was kind of staring off at the door. 01:02:00And so I said

something to her about I really think we need to go. Instead of calling an

ambulance I'll drive you. Let me help you get down the steps. And she didn't

answer me. And her gaze was just fixed on the door. And for a split second,

honest to God, Liz, I thought she died, for a split second. So I said, "Deb!"

And scared her to death, you know. And she said I'm okay, I'm okay. Just hold on

a minute. And so she refused to go anywhere that night at all because of COVID,

because we knew our hospitals were just inundated with patients at the time.

And so I will tell you what's even more profound about this whole thing was the

morning after, you know, we're chatting, and I said Deb, you may have had a

heart attack, and there could be damage. You really 01:03:00need to get checked out. And

I had also called some family and friends that morning and just said this is

what happened. And so they got on the phone with her as well and said you know,

Deb, you really, just go. You got to go do this. It's important. So she agreed.

So I drove her over to St. Joseph's Hospital here in Berks County. And I pulled

into this parking lot that I hadn't seen under the COVID, right, pandemic. It

looked like I pulled into a nuclear waste site, okay. There were tents

everywhere. There were people in hazmat suits. It was just unreal. And so I

parked the car, walked with her up to the curb, to the first tent, and people

didn't even come out of the tent. They stayed back. And they're talking to you

from way further than six feet. And why are you here? What are your 01:04:00 symptoms?

And they go through the COVID questions at that point, of course. And so they

said okay, we need to scan you for a fever, which they did. She did not have. So

they said you can go in the emergency room where there was a police officer

standing at the door that would not allow you in if you did not have the

permission to get in.

LB: Wow.

MD: And so I started walking with her, and the lady in the tent, her voice, you

know, she got a little louder, and she said, "Ma'am, you can't go. You can't go

in." And I knew that. I even knew that driving her over there, that I'm not

going to be able to go in, you know. But let me tell you something, until you're

standing on a curb in front of a tent with people in a hazmat suit telling you

you can't go in with your loved one when they're experiencing a trauma and

potentially fatal trauma, right, at this point, you have no idea how 01:05:00that sits

and how that feels. And so I looked at her, and I'm just going to reveal, and I

said well, that sucks. And she thought I was going to be defensive, of course.

And so she got defensive, and she said oh, you know, this is just for you. We

can't. It's for safety. And I said oh, no, no. I get it. I understand. I really

do know all that, but boy does it really hit home when you're in that position.

So imagine your loved one having contracted COVID, being in the hospital and

being on a ventilator, and you've got to do it via phone or iPad or something.

So I sat in the parking lot waiting for her. And before she sent me a text that

told me she was being evaluated and tests and whatnot. And I put a little post

on Facebook about this called the view from the parking lot 01:06:00because I just

watched the same thing happen to at least a dozen people during the time that I

was there. And I saw their faces when the people that were in my position turned

around to come back to their car because we were told you can wait in your car

or you go home and we'll call you. And so I waited right there in the car.

LB: Oh, yeah, because --

MD: Right? And then but what I saw not only the people that were in my position

walk away and the look on their faces of just despair, it was just despair, were

the people that were coming in that were fearful that they had COVID because

they were sent to another tent outside that was open that I could watch them

being tested for it. I could see that. Every single one of them looked so ill,

gravely ill. It was a really devastating day. nd luckily enough for 01:07:00us the

tests came back fine on my wife. She's fine. We're not sure what it was. It

really could have been a sugar incident. But the point of that is, is that, you

know, many people didn't seek help for other issues they were having because of

this, you know, because of this pandemic. So I mean, it's been life altering.

And we've had some experiences in it that have just really been quite unique and

very frightening.

LB: Yeah. Wow, that's an amazing story, an incredibly important story that I

think (inaudible) told us that because I think people need to understand how

serious that kind of stuff -- I've been in a situation where Trish was in a

very, very dangerous situation, got knocked out, and they took her to the

hospital, and they wouldn't let me in because I wasn't next of kin. And I

actually had in my pocket my power of attorney in my pocket, which I carried 01:08:00with me everywhere I go. I still carry it with me everywhere I go, and our

marriage license in case we knock into somebody who says well, I don't think

you're really married, and it just tends to be -- could just be somebody like

that. But when I was able to get in they didn't keep me from being with her, and

I think that's something that people need to know. I think that's pretty

important. So let's see. Wow. I (inaudible). So I can see all these things

though. So there you go. I mean, there's an enormous amount of frustration and

concern. And what about general frustration? This is so watered down compared to

the story you just told me. But like, in general frustrations or fears, you

know, that's more broad?

MD: Sure, and I think the first thing that 01:09:00comes to mind is probably just

frustration of not being able to see family and friends freely as we've been

accustomed. And boy, it makes you certainly appreciate that, right, what we did

have. So for me that's been frustrating. And even serving our community and

conversations that I'm having with the queer community, it's very much the same.

People are frustrated. And we're in a country, although you might not know it

right now under our current leadership, we have tremendous freedom, right, or

we're supposed to anyway. And we're not accustomed to people telling us no. You

can't do this. And you must stay isolated, and you must wear a mask, and you

must do this and that. And so that's been frustrating, I think, to me and other

people in our community just because we've 01:10:00been so incredibly fortunate enough

to be somewhere where we can pretty much chose our path. And now where there's

obstacles in that path and a great example of that is events that we're doing or

that we used to do here. We had one that we were going to roll out in August

that would be outside, large area. It was a really cool kind of thing that we

came up with to do, out of the box trying to come up with things. And recently

spoke to local officials about doing that somewhere within city realm and were

told no, we're going backwards a little bit here, so we're going to hold off on

some of that stuff. And we've got to kind of put a cap on some of these things

right now because of what we're seeing. So it's been frustrating. And on a

person 01:11:00note, and my wife will tell you this, I don't like to be told no, period,

right. So it's been more difficult for myself and for others that are just used

to doing as we please within the realm of law, of course. So that's a

frustration. And you know, from my position here, and I said it earlier, I think

one of the biggest frustrations that I have is not being able to serve everybody

equally right now in the same fashion. I mean, we're working to do that, but I

guess I'm my worst critic and hardest on myself as I just feel like those who

are able to jump on a Zoom conference or able to get on a call at any time are

much more fortunate in this than those who can't. And so that's frustrating for

me is feeling like we're 01:12:00not -- and I know we are. We're doing all we can and

above that in a lot of instances, but I just feel like we're missing out on a

whole other group of people that are in need right now. And we're trying. We're

doing our best.

LB: I think we've actually hit on pretty much, by the stuff that we've been

talking about, pretty much everything that I'm not going to ask you whether

you're using a lot of dating apps right now.

MD: [laughs] No. No, but other friends are. I do have friends that are doing

that. That's interesting you say that. So yeah, there are a few people who have

turned to that.

LB: I've interviewed people who have said that they're doing it, and that

they're also saying not that I would go on a date.

MD: Right. [laughter]

LB: What kind of person would go on a date then the chances of even getting sick

from them are awfully high if they're dating lots of people. But they're having

conversations and stuff or whatever, online dates with people that have been

something. And I think that 01:13:00that's true. But I haven't really talked to anybody

who said sure, I'm hooking up with people or (inaudible) before. I don't think

if it was even true they'd be admitting it.

MD: Exactly. I mean, I do have one person that I know that started doing the

online dating thing, and the person that she was seeing, so to speak, they

watched a movie. They stream a movie into Zoom and watched this movie together.

And I thought, how clever? I mean, so I think people are really being innovative

and stepping outside the box. I know we're doing that as an organization. And

you guys are too, you know, of what you can do and how to do it because we've

been kind of forced to do that. So there are some positives in all of this. I

mean, its' really given us an opportunity to take a look at how we're doing

things and how can we do things differently, how can we serve more? And maybe

there's some things that we really need to change up and work on.

LB: That's definitely true. 01:14:00I think we're certainly have a larger outreach in

terms of --

MD: Absolutely.

LB: -- the (inaudible). And running certain things that people will see online.

Thirty-seven thousand people have seen something that we put on there, so I'm

like okay, that worked.

MD: Exactly, you know, that's a big Zoom plus, I have to tell you. I mean, you

know, in some of the pogroms that we've done and we have here on site, we get a

lot of Berks County residence, of course, and some Lebanon County and

SchuylkillCounties but never really outside of this area too far. Boy, you put

it on Zoom though and it opens a world really. I mean, you know, even our

website, honestly, I get a notification anytime anybody visits our website, and

it just tells me where they're from. Doesn't give me -- it just says the country

or whatever. I mean, I'm seeing an uptick from I've seen Italy, Finland. I've

seen France, 01:15:00Russia, really. That's been a plus, so the outreach is really

spreading a bit. So that's a good thing.

LB: So in some ways people who are in rural circumstances that were very, very,

very isolated, they could read about the programs we would have, but they

couldn't come to the programs we would have because they were in Beaver County

or something like that. They are now able to do that. So our Pride festival is

going to have this global outreach and stuff, and we're very much excited about

that. So there's that too, and I think that that's been a significant thing

we've done. We were able to do an equal number of interviews or surveys for our

health survey even during this time. And I know you were part of that as well.

So let me ask you two last things. The first thing is do you want to talk 01:16:00 about

the Black Lives Matters? Because we can't really talk about this without talking

about that. So what do you think?

MD: Absolutely. Wow, how long overdue, right? And shame on us again. And I feel

personally like this particular moment right now is different. I really feel as

though it's garnered more attention. And some of that attention's been negative,

I will tell you. You know, I mean, it's out there. We've seen some protests turn

ugy and whatnot, and no matter who's doing the looting and whatnot, you don't

want to see that period or have it come to that, obviously. But what's more

important than that is the people and what we've done over 400 years to people

and in general and especially to those from the 01:17:00black community and people of

color, indigenous people. I think Black Lives Matter speaks to all of that. Even

though it's centered on black community I think it really has a wider girth, and

I think that I'm excited in it to a point of I think it's got some attention,

and it's got the potential to maybe carry change and really make some systemic

change. And that's not going to be easy. I know that. I mean, you know, and it's

not going to happen overnight. But I think that there's a good number of people

who are working in the, what you called earlier the nuts and bolts of things in

policy and legislation that are woke right now, maybe for the first time ever.

And I even know for myself and for my circle of friends, closer circle of

friends, and one of 01:18:00them said it last night to me, you know, that she's used

this time to really immerse herself in the history and doing some research and

really understanding and educating herself about this movement and about what it

means and about what we've done and how much we don't even know because it's

been kind of written off. You know, if you look back in history, what I studied

anyway through school, a lot of it doesn't include a whole other large community

of people and their struggle. So it's unfathomable that it's come to this. For

this day and age it's disheartening for me because I like to think we've made

progress over the years, and especially in the queer community we think okay,

yeah, we made great strides. We take one step forward and three back, and we

know it's an ongoing process, right. 01:19:00But when you're faced with something like

this I think it really puts in a different perspective that we should be so far

ahead of this, and I'm disheartened that we're not. And I take onus of a part of

that that I perpetuated that just by unconscious bias that I have.

So I'm learning. I'm researching. I'm immersing myself in that as well. And I'm

an ally, and I'm an anti-racist and I'm doing what I can in my power, anyway, to

support the community and to build a better diverse community in general that

has equity for everybody. But it's not going to be an easy battle, and it. And

it's sad that it's not. And I think that's what's -- that's tough to take and

overwhelming that why isn't it already happening? And okay, let's take onus on

it that we've done this all these 01:20:00years. Now let's make the changes. Why is that

difficult? Why is that hard? Why can't that be done, okay, you know, bang? So

it's a journey, and but I think it's a super important one that takes

precedence. And I'm proud to stand with my black community and people of color.

You know, Reading has a lot of diversity, just like Allentown, right. We're a

mixed bad, a melting pot, and it's super important for me as a white cis woman

to recognize that even in our own organization and our own families, even in my

own circle of friends I believe I'm diverse. I believe I'm open to everybody and

accepting, but yet when I look around I think okay, I have a handful of black,

indigenous, people of color as friends.

Why is that only a handful, 01:21:00like, you know? So it's been an eye-opening thing,

and I think it's important that we take a stand. It's no longer okay to sit

quietly. And there are people that are behind the scenes that do some work

behind the scenes, and one of them I spoke to this morning. He's a good friend

of mine. And he said, you know, he read the front page of our paper today, and

there was an article in there that was just horrific to see, and it was

regarding Dr. Levine, actually. It wasn't about the Black Lives Matter, but it's

kind of interconnected, really, right. So yeah, and he said to me, he said I

feel like I need to voice a response. I feel like I need to write an article, a

letter to the editor, or do something. And this is a person who doesn't normally

speak out. He's a definite ally. He's anti-racist. He 01:22:00works behind the scenes,

you know. And then he second guessed himself, and he said well, I don't know

that I should. I probably do better when I'm working to make these things

happen. I don't have to speak out. And I said, you know what, yes, you do. I

said and I appreciate all you're doing behind the scenes. I get that, and I'm so

appreciative of that, we all are, but it's no longer okay for any of us to stay quiet.

And there's no reason why you can't continue to do those things behind the scene

but also take a public stand of that. This is not okay. And you know, I think

when we see more people doing that, that builds momentum. And so I encourage

everybody, you know, with any kind of integrity, I guess, with everything that's

going on from Black Lives Matter to transphobia and bigotry and hatred and all

of those things that we're facing in our community in general, you know, stand

up. Speak out. We all need allies. We 01:23:00know that there are so many people that

are supportive, or we believe that there are so many people that are supportive,

but actions speak much louder than words. So let's show it. Let's do it. And do

it respectfully. And I say that with grace that, you know, I believe you get

further along in accomplishing, maybe in gaining solution and promoting change

doing it in a fashion that is respectful to everybody involved. We don't have to

agree on policy. We don't have to agree on, you know, your politics, my

politics, or beliefs or anything like that, but there's no reason that we can't

have a conversation and be civil and work to bridge those gaps and make an

impact and make some change. It's time. It's way overdue time.

LB: Yeah. I was at 01:24:00this meeting that had to do with the Alzheimer's task force

yesterday, and they were talking about a big event that we're going to have in

May, in November that we have every year. And they wanted the keynote speaker to

be somebody who was going to be talking about early detection and stuff. And

frankly they do that every year. They always talk about that. Because there's

nothing else to talk about. There's no cure, so there's (overlapping dialogue;

inaudible). So they talk about various different ways of caring for people and

early detection. But this time we do have people and a new black person that's

part of this task force, and other people that are on the task force that are

black people are all appointed by the governor. At one point somebody said you

know, because they were talking a lot about the issue of Alzheimer's with regard

to the people of color community, and one of the people, the white people who's

the leader of this, they're actually the liaison of the government 01:25:00said maybe

the keynote speaker should be talking about that, should be talking about

dementia, the dementia treatment and care with regard to the black community and

the people of color community. So here's an interesting piece of information

that I didn't know until yesterday, and that is that black people and people who

are Latino are twice as likely to get Alzheimer's disease and to have

Alzheimer's disease than white people.

MD: Wow. And kudos to him for stepping up and saying that, yeah.

LB: And everybody -- and so that's, you know, it's a respectful thing to say

okay, well, we're going to talk about this in the meeting instead of just

looking away and saying yeah, but we really want to talk about early detection

because we want everyone to be included. No, it's not just about black people.

But the other thing that I went, in effect, I went to this meeting in Harrisburg

and spent a lot of hours there 01:26:00trying to get back on the Skype because I had to

keep doing it. And yet I learned a piece of information that I've passed on to a

number of other people. And I think that's a really important piece of information.

MD: That's huge, yeah.

LB: And then I was able to add because they were taking about communities that

don't get care because they're minorities, and I'm on that committee because I'm

representing the queer community, so I said I would like to add that the LGBT

community and also the LGBT community of color is in danger by the federal

government of being removed from the American Care Act. And I think we need to

talk about that. And so I said when you talk about removing a group of people

from -- there's intersectionality where it will affect the black and people of

color community and indigenous people community as well. And so one 01:27:00way to

remove people from care is to -- there's intersectional circumstance. And I said

black transgendered people are one of the highest levels of discrimination. And

trans people are often routinely removed from care, get [disparate?] care, and

now we're saying if they're black and they have dementia, you know, and they're

(overlapping dialogue; inaudible) get dementia. So let's talk about that. That's

a really interesting thing. And instead of just that kind of tired thing of

well, yeah, it really sucks to get Alzheimer's disease. Well, we know that.

MD: You make a great point, Liz. And I want to thank you for what you do, for

all that you do. You know, I like to think of you of somebody that's an agent of

change, and you just gave a great example there 01:28:00where you're able to bring that

knowledge and experience you have to other communities and to plant seeds. We're

all planting seeds and educating, which is, I think, is the baseline for

everything. A lot of this ignorance -- a lot of it is ignorance.

LB: I've always thought that one of our primary positions as activists like you

and I, and you've done a fabulous job in Reading, and since you've been leading

that organization all your input into it has just been so evident that it's made

such a difference to the community.

MD: Thank you.

LB: But I think that education, education is absolutely the primary thing. For

our own community, so if somebody calls up and says well, do I need to get

married? Let's talk about what this means for you. And I just had a long

conversation with somebody who has a 01:29:00kid who's been together for a long time. I

said do you own your house together? Do you realize that you're in enormous risk

if you're not legally married? I mean, you need to think about why you're not

legally married, and have that whole conversation. I had a whole conversation

with somebody about what the laws say or discrimination or advocacy or something

like that. And it's primarily -- it's information. I think that's really, really

-- and education that we have to even do for our own community. And that's a

huge important part of a community center is educating our own community.

MD: Absolutely, and you know, we would probably think that that wouldn't be

necessary, like, you know, but it's -- you're absolutely right. We see that time

and time again where people that we serve, you know, they lack the knowledge.

They lack the know-how. They're got questions, and rightfully so. That's fine.

There's no 01:30:00judgment on that. It's just this is what we're here to do. And so

whether it's in the community or without in our local areas and cities and

towns, I agree education is our baseline across the board. It's where you got to

start, and you build that foundation from there.

LB: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love your logo. That's a great logo.

MD: Thank you. It's pretty cool. Yeah, I'm fond of that. But I will tell you,

the six colors like that, it's made for a little bit of difficulty when you're

trying to do shirts or banners. I didn't think about it, but it does.

LB: I absolutely said to Adrienne when we were deciding on logo for the center,

I said when we had Pennsylvania University Network it had a rainbow flag in it.

And I said you know, it actually doesn't matter as much now as it used to

because printing doesn't matter 01:31:00quite as much with the colors then. But like

t-shirts and banners where they're saying well, each color is an additional cost

(overlapping dialogue; inaudible)

MD: Exactly, and just to get t-shirts printed, you know, they want one thousand

dollars for a couple t-shirts, and I -- what?

LB: I know. I know. So I said to Adrienne we have to make our logo a two-color

logo, essentially on black and white, but black and another color. So you can do

that. Make it (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)

MD: Smart.

LB: Well, and it was only from years and years of experience of the ridiculous

cost. The Valley Gay Press logo had pink in it too which was a whole other cost

just --

MD: Oh yeah.

LB: Because it's not a standard color. So oh my God I just, I thought the

problem with us is we're too fabulous.

MD: There you go, right?

LB: Two colors aren't enough.

MD: That is not.

LB: And PFLAG had a really, it just had like two colors, and I thought God, that

is so -- we 01:32:00got to remember this. And I was looking at your logo and saying it's

more beautiful than our sports logo, which we were called [the squirt?]. And we

actually thought about having each one of the little squirty thing be a

different color, and I said it's just going to cost us too much money. I know I

would look so much better if we were doing it, but --

MD: No, I understand.

LB: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) you know that would have cost a fortune,

oh my.

MD: I never thought about it ever. It didn't even cross my mind until I made the

calls to do that and said holy cow, you know.

LB: We thought of that for twenty years.

MD: Wow.

LB: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) gala had that too, and then the Valley Gay

Press had it, and I just couldn't get -- and then we finally got into this I

said it's really going to make -- we have to think about having -- just make it

two colors or we're just going to be sorry forever. And I also said make it look 01:33:00okay in black and white too because there are some logos, and I actually, when I

was firs doing the paper and stuff where they would give us a color logo, and it

was in black and white, the paper was in black and white, and the whole logo,

you couldn't even read the logo at all. It just looked like a gray blob.

MD: Oh wow.

LB: I think it was because all the colors were so close in range that even

though in color it was very vibrant, you know, there was like a pink and red and

a green and stuff like that, (inaudible) looked like a gray square, you know.

And I thought wow, your graphic designer was not paying attention when they

created this thing. I once had to redo an entire poster for the summer games for

FACT, which was a beautiful poster, but the colors were so similar that you

couldn't even tell what the poster said.

MD: Wow, it gets lost.

LB: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) lettering 01:34:00was on a color, but the value of

the gray in the letter was exactly the same as the value of the pink background

or the rose background. You just couldn't see the letters at all. And I thought,

you know, they're going to be so mad at me if I do this and not (inaudible). But

it's a beautiful logo, and I think it's such a tradeoff. I like the lettering

too. I like the style of the lettering. That's a really nice -- what font is

that in the LGBT (inaudible)?

MD: You know, honestly I don't remember what we chose for that font. We've been

trying different fonts, just kind of playing with a little bit, and that was a

banner. There's a place here in Berks County for Berks County organizations that

they do one free banner to any nonprofit in the county a year, and I heard about

this, and I thought well, let's try, because we do the holiday parade here. We

participate as an organization, and we usually carry the banner, and 01:35:00we've had

some banners that have been horrible, really horrible. So I thought let me try

this, and it came in, and there's no holiday parade this year, obviously. So I

thought I'm going to put it on the wall and see how it looks. And so actually it

looks pretty good up there, and we were working on getting shirts. We've got

some polos that we've done, and oddly enough we've done the lettering in back,

and we took the logo into white, just did white with it on a couple to try it.

And although I like the rainbow colors, obviously, the white looks just as good.

I mean, so we're fortunate that it works, but I hear you with the price is

incredible. It's, you know, when they say that's six different colors, and

there's, you know.

LB: (inaudible) it's actually because it's blended it's an overlay, oh my gosh.

And yet it's all about fabulous, so that's the thing.

MD: It is, right? (laughter)

LB: Well, I ask everybody if there was, you know, this is an archive video, and

it's possible that 01:36:00people will see this in the future, many, many years from

now, and they know what's going to happen. They know who's going to be elected.

They know what's going to happen with regard to that. If they're still alive

they know if the world was still in place. They know what's going to happen with

COVID. But they don't know what individuals who are going through -- that's why

we made these things, they don't know what individuals are talking about and how

it was affecting them. And I think your interview has been fabulous in terms of

the effectiveness of that. But do you have a sort of sound bite to tell those

people in the future about what's going on or what you hope for them or

something like that or what you -- I don't know.

MD: Sure. I really didn't think about that, but that's a great question. I like

to have that opportunity. And I guess I would probably say it might sound

clich, a bit, but 01:37:00how you react in the face of adversity is super important

and that the challenges that you face on a daily basis, on a yearly basis, you

know, they shape who you become, who you are, the community around you, your

family, your friends. And so it's important, I think, to really live

authentically and to walk in light, in love, and always stay on the positive

side of trouble. And John Lewis, an icon that we just lost here, civil rights

icon, you know, get into good trouble is one of the things that he said, and so

I would urge everybody to take that step forward and get into good trouble. Once

you find your purpose and passion, which you can find at the age of 01:38:00twenty or

you can find at the age of sixty, me, I just found it a few years ago, quite

honestly, and it's what I'm doing now. And so I really, I speak from experience

when I say this is that nothing has been more fulfilling for me in my life tan

to actually step forward out of my comfort zone, pretty much every single day,

honestly, and do what it is I was meant to do and serve, however that may be for

those coming behind us anyway. It was my hope that we would leave this planet a

better planet for those coming behind us, Liz. Unfortunately we're not there,

and I'm not sure we're going to be there throughout lifetime. So part of me

wants to apologize, you know, for some of the damage we've done as a culture, as

a community, as a nation to our own planet 01:39:00and to our people in general. So I

really wish those coming behind us the best, and I'm hopeful that life for them

is filled with less challenge and angst than we're experiencing right now.

LB: Yeah, that was beautiful. That was a great statement. I forgot to ask you,

to make some comments about our secretary of health Rachel Levine, and I just

want to throw in there that what you're saying really talks to the heroes of our

community, and certainly Dr. Levine is one of them. And I know a lot of our

young people are -- a lot of our young people are really devastated by how cruel

everyone has been to Dr. Levine solely because she's transgender, not because

she -- because we know that she's a brilliant scientist and a brilliant -- And I

want all of our young people to know that 01:40:00heroes have to deal with adversity

that often has nothing to do with the good things that they're doing all the

time. It was true for Superman and Batman, for heaven's sakes. And certainly Dr.

Levine is our hero. And you, Michelle, are also our hero. I think that's

definitely a true, a hero in Berks County and a hero in the city of Reading

doing amazing work. And I think that you're speaking to that as well, and I

think you might want to speak just to a couple things about Dr. Levine, and then

we'll be done.

MD: Yes, absolutely, Liz. And thank you for that, and you should know that --

right back at you. You're that hero as well. As far as Dr. Levine is concerned,

you know, you're right. Brilliant scientist, brilliant doctor, wonderful person,

and tragically just disrespected. And I'm having a difficulty finding the right

words to even 01:41:00describe what's happening with her. And it's just disgusting. And

it's really disheartening to see. And it's not just her. And you made that

point, and so did she when she just came out and spoke about these disparaging

remarks that have been made. You know, the remarks have been coldhearted and

nasty ugly. And I will tell you, I often watch the briefings that they do for

COVID during the day, and one of the things I found myself doing just a couple

days ago was paying more attention to what was scrolling of the comments. And I

was overwhelmed, completely overwhelmed and felt like I didn't even know where

to begin, so to speak, in combating the hatred that was coming out. And this is

a woman who has led us through the, you know, a 01:42:00historic pandemic that we're

still in the midst of who gets up there every day and does her thing and is

passionate about keeping us safe. And how incredibly vile to attack somebody

based on transphobia and hatred. And you know, it's okay to absolutely disagree

with somebody and have a difference of opinion, difference of policy. I get that.

But where did it become okay to personally attack people with hatred and really

harassment? When I read through that, that's kind of what hit my mind was this

is harassment. And the second thought that went through my mind is I really hope

she doesn't see this. I really hope she doesn't even see it. And at the end of

the day what you and I talked about early as education being the vehicle 01:43:00 for

change, that's what it is. I come back to that as -- and there are going to be

people, and there are people, that we can't educate because they don't want to

be educated. They don't. It's not going to happen. And that's unfortunate. So I

hope that the next generation and other generations coming through have a bit

more compassion and respect and tolerance. And I don't even like the word

tolerance, to be honest with you. I'm not a fan of that word, so to speak, but

in this instance perhaps it fits that we take a step back and we don't need to

personally attack people. If you want to have, voice a difference of opinion or

have an argument, a constructive argument on something, that's fine, but don't

attack people for how they identify, who they are, who they love, any of those 01:44:00things. She doesn't deserve that, and no one does.

And I think what people don't realize, and any people with any type of moral, in

my opinion, morals or ethics would think wow. Think of the damage this person is

doing and the devastation that they're plotting with so many young transgender

people out there that are seeing that and who are already facing discrimination

and maybe horrific circumstances at home or whatever it may be. You know, the

queer community has been discriminated against since the beginning of time,

right. We know that. We fought the fight, and we continue to fight it every day.

But this is our youth. These are our kids. These are our people. These are human

beings. Whether you're a person of color, you're black, indigenous, 01:45:00 gay,

transgender, however you identify and whoever you are, you know, we're all human

beings. We're all human beings. And so we all should treat one another with a

bit of compassion. And so I'm really disheartened over this with Dr. Levine, and

I will tell that as an organization and for me personally this only fuels me

more and ignites a deeper passion in me that we've got work to do. And we've got

to change this dialogue, and we got to get busy because thre's a lot to do.

LB: Well, that's good for you. That's exactly the response that needs to happen,

I think, that when you have that kind of attack, well, certainly you point to it

and say well, this is a group of people who cannot attack the person based on

the intelligent things they say. They don't want to acknowledge what they're

saying is true, 01:46:00so they attack a person in the personal way. And that's what's

happened to every minority, every disenfranchised class ever. That's what the --

lack of intelligence always attacks somebody from the personal.

MD: Absolutely.

LB: -- level from how they look, something like that, has nothing to do with the

actual things that they're doing and why they're doing it and stuff like that

and the information that she's bringing to people. People don't want her. They

don't want this to be true.

MD: Exactly.

LB: They don't want this to be true. They don't want it to be true that there is

this pandemic and that the only way to stop it is to wear masks and stay inside

and get a vaccine, probably soon, and social distance. They just don't want it

to be true.

MD: It's willful ignorance, right. It is willful ignorance, and that's pretty

damn dangerous, honestly, in my opinion, you know.

LB: 01:47:00It is. Well, thank you so much. I really, really appreciate you taking a lot

of time, more time than I asked for, for this terrific interview. And you had

such interesting insights, and I appreciate it, and I appreciate all the

terrific work that you're doing. Thank you very much. And I'm going to turn the

recorder off, and thank you.

MD: Thank you, Liz. Thank you. I really appreciated being here. Thanks for your time.

LB: Great.

END OF VIDEO FILE