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Marie Equi
by Michael Helquist

As part of our Queerly Defiant series, this is the first of a two-part interview by Bob Lederer about the remarkable life of Dr. Marie Equi, who lived from 1872 to 1952. Equi was a lesbian physician and political activist, primarily based in Portland, Oregon, who was devoted to providing care to working-class and poor patients, providing reproductive health care information to women, and fighting initially for civic and economic reforms, women’s right to vote and an eight-hour workday, and later for a socialist society as part of the anarchist Industrial Workers of the World or IWW. Due to her strident public opposition to World War I, which she denounced as an imperialist venture, she served 10 months in federal prison on charges of violating the Sedition Act passed at the behest of President Woodrow Wilson. Equi was also remarkably open about her intimate relationships with women in an era when doing so was extremely rare, and stigma and persecution against lesbians and gay men was extreme.

Yet despite Equi’s groundbreaking achievements, she remains almost totally unknown, both to the LGBTQ community and the Left.

In 2015, gay writer/historian Michael Helquist published the first full-length biography of Equi. Titled Marie Equi: Radical Politics and Outlaw Passions, it was published by Oregon State University Press. Michael has worked in the anti-war, HIV/AIDS, and LGBTQ movements since the 1970s. He has published widely in LGBTQ and mainstream publications. His biography of Equi was named a 2016 Stonewall Honor Book. He lives in San Francisco with his husband.

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Tuesday, 7/18 at 9pm on WBAI/NY 99.5FM and streaming at wbai.org

Tune into WBAI tonight for a one-hour fund drive special by Out-FM, when we’ll play excerpts of the recent conference co-sponsored by Out-FM and ACT UP/NY titled 30 Years of ACT UP/NY: Hidden Histories and Voices, Lessons Learned. A wide range of activists told short, pithy stories about the creative, powerful, and often-successful campaigns on many AIDS injustices that have rarely been reported by other media.  Tonight you’ll hear just a few of the 32 voices presented at the conference:

•    Sharonann Lynch, formerly with Health GAP (Global Access Project) and Fed Up Queers, about the hugely successful campaign to make AIDS medications available to 17 million people in the Global South,
•    Luis Santiago, formerly with the ACT UP Latina/o Caucus, about the successful effort to form ACT UP/Puerto Rico, which dramatically increased funding of AIDS services and decreased stigma.
•    Kate Barnhart, formerly with ACT UP’s Youth Education Life Line, about the creative, audacious campaign that pressured the NYC Board of Education to institute AIDS education and condom availability in public high schools.
•    The late Katrina Haslip (an excerpt from a new documentary about women AIDS activists) about the campaign to demand that the Centers for Disease Control broaden the definition of AIDS to include illnesses experienced mainly by women and injection drug users – which succeeded shortly after Katrina died, never having been diagnosed as having AIDS and thus qualifying for federal benefits.

For a $50 pledge, we'll send you a copy of an mp3 CD of this historic, 7-hour conference). Pledging during the 9pm hour on Tuesday is critical to your support for Out-FM being counted. Our continuation on the air could depend on the donations we raise. We were threatened with removal from the air last fall and it was only your calls and letters that got us back on. To pledge, call 516-620-3602 or go to give2wbai.org . If you can’t pledge during tonite’s show, you can call or go online any time to pledge for this premium – or make a gift of any amount on behalf of your favorite show, Out-FM.

WBAI, which has steadfastly refused to take corporate advertising, is in a precarious situation and we are calling on listeners to give as generously as possible. WBAI, through its parent Pacifica Foundation, is being sued by the billiondollar Empire State Realty Trust, which rents space for the station’s transmitter and is demanding $2.1 million in back rent and $2 million dollars more in future rent. They are also refusing to allow WBAI to opt out of the contract. If granted by the judge, these terms would devastate not just WBAI, but also the parent Pacifica Foundation.

When WBAI’s rental contract was up for renewal in 2005, the Empire State Building took advantage of the 9/11 destruction of the World Trade Center (where other stations’ antennas were housed) and built in a very steep rent-escalator clause into the station’s 15-year contract – which today stands at $52,000 per month! In 2014, when Pacifica explained to Empire State that we could rent at a similar location for ¼ the price, they agreed to accept $12,500 to keep our business. Now, with new, more ruthless management, they've decided to try to collect the full amount of back and future rent and have been unwilling to negotiate a settlement. Meanwhile, the station must keep paying its basic operating costs, while saving funds for a possible settlement.More than a dozen NYC elected officials at the state and local level have publicly called for Empire State Realty Trust to negotiate in good faith with WBAI/Pacifica. Reach out to your representative and ask them to support this effort. For details, click here. Help save the station that has served the people consistently for 57 years!