Kathy Fillman was born in Coatesville, Pennsylvania to an Irish family that had their own business. Although she describes her childhood as idyllic, Kathy lived with her grandparents and three cousins due to her mother’s alcoholism and attended a...

David Walker was born in 1946 in Lancaster County, where he grew up in a strict Presbyterian family and always knew that he was different. He studied to be a teacher at Lebanon Valley College when the school was more fundamentalist, but after...

Delma Welch was born in Washington D.C. and grew up in Cardiff, Maryland as a Catholic with her three brothers and one sister. Delma began going to NOW [National Organization for Women] meetings in 1975 after becoming interested in feminism from...

The interview performed on March 23, 2015 is with Oral History project volunteer, Michele Metcalf and long-time LGBT activist and self-identified gay man, Phil Wenger. Wenger was born and raised in Ethiopia in a large Mennonite missionary family...

Cindy Lou Mitzel was born in April of 1942 in York County, Pennsylvania as the youngest in a big family. Growing up, Cindy knew that she felt attraction towards women but married a man just after graduating from high school and had three children...

Dr. Eric Selvey was born and raised in Harrisburg, PA. He attended optometry school in Philadelphia, but returned to the Harrisburg area after graduating. In his interview he discusses his relationship with his mother and grandmother — and coming...

Daniel Maneval was born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania on October 3, 1947. In this interview, Daniel speaks frankly about his experiences growing up as an only child, about the homophobic violence he has experienced, and the gay organizations he...

Cathy Nelson was born in Brooklyn, New York, and moved to Staten Island, New York, at the age of two with her strict Italian-Swedish family. As a child, Cathy loved music and did well in school. She also participated in Catholic youth group...

Benjamin Dunlap was born in Lancaster County Pennsylvania on December 23, 1957. He was born to a family with a mother, father, and sister ten years older than him. Throughout his life he was highly involved with LGBT community life and in...

Mark Segal is a gay rights activist, author, and journalist for the Philadelphia Gay News. In this interview, Mark discusses his political involvement in the gay rights movement in Pennsylvania in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Particularly, he focuses...

Anthony Silvestre was born in 1946 in the Bronx in New York. He grew up in a working-class, Italian neighborhood and is familiar with stigma. He began identifying as gay in the sixth grade, but went through school still in the closet. After high...

Hannah-Smith Brubaker was born in Tioga County, Pennsylvania, and spent most of her childhood in Port Allegany, McKean County. She began to identify as a lesbian at the start of college, and she entered the political sphere for the first time...