Gays Against Briggs | The Story Behind Our Cover Art

Summary

Slow Burn – “Gays Against Briggs | The Story Behind Our Cover Art”

Date: July 26, 2024
Guests: Silvana Nova (activist, cover art subject) & Larry Hermson (activist, artist/photographer)

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Episode Overview

This special “Slow Burn: Gays Against Briggs” bonus episode delves into the story behind this season’s cover art—a powerful poster created in 1978 to fight the anti-gay Briggs Initiative. Host (not named in the transcript) interviews Silvana Nova (the subject, raising a fist in the image) and Larry Hermson (the poster’s creator) about San Francisco’s queer “street queen” subculture in the 1970s, the mainstream gay movement’s tensions, and the urgency—and resonance—of queer activism, then and now.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins and Arrival in San Francisco

• Larry Hermson details leaving conservative Boston where apolitical vibes in early gay spaces frustrated him, spurring a move west after discovering radical queer activists (03:12).
• Silvana Nova shares escaping Florida and conservative Atlanta for San Francisco, lured by stories of freedom and creative culture (04:09).

2. Drag, Gender Expression, and “Genderfuck”

• Silvana describes drag in San Francisco as integral, daily, and boundary-pushing, not about passing as women but “fluid before fluidity happened” (05:21).

  “No matter how we presented, we didn’t want to identify ourselves or put ourselves in a box of any kind.” – Silvana Nova (05:42)

• The style was experimental—“wear dresses over jeans, hairy legs, Doc Martens”—challenging both gender norms and gay mainstream aesthetics (05:19).

• Larry notes drag wasn't about passing: “I’m going to wear whatever I damn well please. I don’t care if it’s supposed to be for men or women. If it fits and I like it, I’ll wear it.” (06:52)

3. Mainstream Gay Movement Tensions

• The “clone culture” of the Castro (masculine, uniform style) often excluded gender nonconforming and drag folks; some gay bars even banned drag queens (09:19).

  “We were all very visible… we were kind of outcasts… Do you think we were outcasts?” – Silvana Nova (07:18)

• Political groups reflected diverse, fractious ideologies—Marxists, anarchists, goddess-worshippers, and more. The movement was anything but monolithic (10:41).

4. Creation of the Iconic Poster

• Poster Description: Black background, big pink triangle, Silvana emerging from the triangle with raised fist (12:48).

  “Never Again. Fight Back.” – Poster text (12:52)

• The pink triangle’s meaning (used by Nazis to mark gay prisoners) was not widely known at the time. Larry added an explanatory byline to educate (13:28).

  “I wanted it to be educational… I sort of thought of Silvana as, like, the most radical queen that I knew.” – Larry Hermson (13:43)

• The shoot: Silvana posed in “revolutionary drag,” with elements like a plaid shirt, jeans jacket, lavender-star beret, scarf—and initially, a knife (removed for being too violent) (14:55; 16:19).

• All poster production was analog—photography, “stat camera,” and press-on letraset letters (16:53–18:16).

5. Distributing the Poster & Gender Politics

• The collective sold the poster to benefit the anti-Briggs campaign.
• Memorable story: In a separatist women’s bookstore, staff asked Larry whether the subject was a man or woman—he wouldn’t say. They accepted it for sale anyway, highlighting both the desire to fight Briggs and fluid boundaries in queer presentation (18:58–19:55).

6. Symbols, Legacy, and Enduring Power

• Pink triangle vs. rainbow flag:
  • Triangle: Historic, “stronger and more visceral… more political” (22:15–24:05).
  • Rainbow: Social, inclusive, “more benign.”
• The poster is cited as a precursor to ACT UP’s visual style (“Silence = Death”). It’s now part of archives including the NY Public Library, Harvey Milk terminal, and still comes up at auctions (24:30–25:58).

  “It’s been surprising and gratifying because it was almost 50 years ago, and I’m really glad that it still speaks to people.” – Larry Hermson (25:14) “It does speak to how universal and timeless the message is… it doesn’t look dated at all. Yeah, I’ve dated, but it hasn’t.” – Silvana Nova (25:45)

7. Resurgent Backlash & Activism Today

• Both guests lament seeing anti-queer, anti-trans narratives resurface—echoing the dangerous rhetoric of the Briggs era (26:32).

  “Didn’t we learn any lessons?… The only thing I can do is fight back.” – Silvana Nova (26:32)

• Yet, they retain optimism:

  “It’s always like, you go uphill a little bit, then go down a bit… but the curve is going up… You just have to keep doing it and hoping you’re pushing the needle a little bit.” – Silvana Nova (27:48)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On “Genderfuck” style:
  “It was fluid before fluidity happened.” – Silvana Nova (05:21)
• On mainstream respectability policing:
  “Before one of the gay liberation parades, they told us to clean up. Of course, that just prompted us to be more outrageous.” – Larry Hermson (07:49)
• On fighting exclusion within the gay community:
  “We were pretty much excluded from clone culture. And there were bars that didn’t allow drag queens in.” – Larry Hermson (09:11)
• On being an outcast and embracing it:
  “I mean, we can’t hide it, so why should we?” – Silvana Nova (09:40)
• On the rainbow flag vs. pink triangle:
  “The rainbow flag is more about inclusiveness… Whereas the pink triangle… is a lot more stronger and more visceral and historical.” – Larry Hermson + Silvana Nova (22:15–22:56)

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Essential Timestamps

• [02:30–05:46] Guests’ arrival in San Francisco & drag beginnings
• [06:41–09:19] Street queen style, exclusion from “clone culture”
• [12:42–16:53] Conceiving, shooting, and designing the poster
• [18:58–19:55] Selling the poster and navigating gendered spaces
• [22:15–24:05] The symbolism of pink triangle vs. rainbow flag
• [25:58–28:41] Reflection on today’s backlash and ongoing activism

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Tone & Final Thoughts

The episode is candid, witty, and deeply reflective, grounded in Silvana and Larry’s matter-of-fact embrace of their radicalism:

“Maybe you need to pose for another poster.” – Interviewer (28:41)
“Let’s come up with a new one.” – Larry Hermson (28:45)

Their joy in resistance and continued optimism is evident, even as they confront contemporary threats. The “Fight Back” message endures, visually and politically—a testament to the timelessness of queer resilience and creativity.

Transcript

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[Interviewer]

Hey Slate plus listeners, I hope you've been enjoying Slow Burn Season nine Gays Against Briggs the Slow Burn team and I wanted to give you a little something extra this week. It's an interview with two special guests, Silvana Nova and Larry Hermson. Silvana is the person you see raising a fist on this season's cover art, and Larry is the one who made the photo in 1978. We had a beautiful conversation about how they turned it into a poster to raise money to fight the Briggs Initiative. And we talked about how gender nonconforming gays like Sylvana and Larry, street queens they called themselves, had their own flourishing culture in San Francisco outside the mainstream gay scene. They also had a lot to say about the threats queer people are facing today. I'm so excited for you to hear it. Enjoy. Why don't you start by telling me your names and what you do? Silvana, let's start with you.

[Silvana Nova]

I'm Silvana Nova. I'm retired, although I'm pretty much fully employed in volunteer efforts leading up to the election this year I've been involved in politics since the early 70s, and I lived in San Francisco from 75 to 91.

[Larry Hermson]

And I'm Larry Hermson. From 76 to 2007, I lived in San Francisco and Oakland. And I also was politically involved since the early 70s, starting with the Vietnam War and then coming out and working mainly around gay and lesbian issues.

[Interviewer]

And what brought you to San Francisco?

[Larry Hermson]

I was living in Boston because I knew I needed to go to a big city to come out. I'm from a small town in Iowa. Boston was just too conservative. I mean, I helped start a gay center there, and the membership voted not to be at all political. So I thought, oh, God, how can you be queer and not be political? You know?

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Larry Hermson]

So I was out of there. So I decided to visit the West Coast. Right when I arrived in the fall of 76 was this gathering called Faggots and Class Struggle in Southern Oregon. And that's where I met Silvana and a number of other people from San Francisco. And I really liked them. So I decided to move to San Francisco.

[Interviewer]

Wow. So, Sylvana, it was you who brought Larry out there? It was all you.

[Silvana Nova]

Among others. Among many other fabulous people.

[Interviewer]

What about you, Silvana? How did you end up in San Francisco?

[Silvana Nova]

Well, I spent my deformative years, from 12 till about 19 or 20, Florida. And I just had to get out of there. So the nearest big city was Atlanta. So I moved to Atlanta. And Atlanta was even more conservative than Boston. And so I knew I had to get out. And I had a lot of friends who had kind of emigrated to San Francisco or would come back and tell me all the stories about San Francisco. And it was just like, oh, that sounds like fun. That's what I want to do.

[Interviewer]

Silvano, when did you start performing in drag?

[Silvana Nova]

Like, two days after I moved to San Francisco. I mean, in Atlanta, I'd done a lot of drag. I mean, just to go out. Like, oh, let's go to the disco. Yeah, well, where's the lipstick? Where's the glitter? But then when I moved to San Francisco, it became much more serious, and people just lived in drag. But it was like what we call gender.

[Interviewer]

F. You can say it.

[Silvana Nova]

Genderfuck.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Silvana Nova]

So you'd wear dresses, but you might wear them over a pair of jeans, or you'd show your hairy legs and wear, you know, Doc Martens or whatever. You know, it was like. It was fluid before fluidity happened. No matter how we presented, we didn't want to identify ourselves or put ourselves in a Box of any kind.

[Interviewer]

Did you have a drag Persona or did you have, you know, a signature style? What was your. What did you do?

[Larry Hermson]

Fabulous. That was his style. Fabulous.

[Silvana Nova]

Excuse me. What was my Persona? Well, certain people thought I was way too bourgeois in my presentation. I was criticized for reading Vogue magazine.

[Interviewer]

That is terribly bourgeois.

[Silvana Nova]

I mean, we were all crazy kids, you know, and so we were just experimenting and going as far as we could with it. And so we were all doing that in our own way, in our own personal style. And my personal style at times. Is this right, Larry? Had a certain elegance.

[Larry Hermson]

Yes. But I think you also. Your drag was sort of on the cutting edge of whatever was happening in fashion at the time, where I was more interested in vintage. I would do a lot of 40s stuff and, you know, kind of mixed in with the hippie aesthetic, mixing, you know, quote unquote, male and female clothes. And, I mean, the point was never to pass as a woman. We didn't wear breasts or shave our chests or any of that. And my attitude was, I'm going to wear whatever I damn well please. I don't care if it's supposed to be for men or women. If it fits and I like it, I'll wear it.

[Silvana Nova]

You know, I mean, we were all very visible, and we were all like, this is coming off the hippie movement, too. So a lot of us had long hair. Larry used to have gorgeous long hair. You know, we were very visible. And we all lived San Francisco small, so we all lived in or near the Castro. So it was like we were part of that community, even though we were kind of outcasts. Do you think we were outcasts?

[Larry Hermson]

Well, depending on who you talk to, I suppose. I think there certainly were people in the gay movement who thought we were presenting too radically and that we needed to clean up our act. And in fact, before one of the gay liberation parades, they told us to clean up. And, of course, that just prompted us to be more outrageous.

[Silvana Nova]

Yeah, they wanted everybody to come in, like, suits and stuff, because the coverage of Gay Pride parade in San Francisco was always, you know, like the drag queens and the leather queens and the dykes on bikes. And it was like everything outrageous that any normal person would get offended by. So let's all come in suits and let's act straight, and then they won't have anything to photograph. And it was like we all just said, fuck you.

[Interviewer]

What year was this that they were asking you to do that?

[Larry Hermson]

77 maybe, or 78.

[Silvana Nova]

I think it was 78, because this is Part of the whole history of the Briggs movement.

[Interviewer]

I want to rewind a little bit thinking about the Castro in the 1970s. I think many people think of the sort of Castro clone look. I wonder if you could tell me a little bit more about what it was like to be engaging in gender fuckery in that kind of. Of environment. What was the social scene like for people who didn't fit that mold?

[Larry Hermson]

Well, we were pretty much excluded from clone culture. And there were bars that didn't allow drag queens in.

[Interviewer]

Oh, wow.

[Silvana Nova]

Like, we wanted to go there anyway.

[Larry Hermson]

Well, right.

[Silvana Nova]

And so many of us. I mean, I never had a choice really. I couldn't be a clone. I mean, I was a sissy boy from when I was a child. I mean, Larry, we had this whole group that was like sissy power, you know, and it was for us very empowering. But it was also like, well, yeah, this is who we are and I mean, we can't hide it, so why should we? I think the mainstream gay movement at that time, which a lot of America saw as completely radical, seemed to us very mainstream. So I almost immediately fell into that. And that was also a big era of foment in gay politics in San Francisco. There was this group called Bagel Bagl Bay Area Gay Liberation. And it was just, you know, like any political group that has like high ideals and all that. There were so many internecine disturbances going on. It was like the straight identified gay men and the sissies and it was just, you know, like.

[Larry Hermson]

Yeah, there was a division between the Marxists and the anarchists and the goddess worshipers. The goddess worshipers and the.

[Silvana Nova]

We're not kidding.

[Larry Hermson]

Yeah, this is true. And the gay people who wanted to support gays in the military and the other people who thought that that was h. And we shouldn't be supporting the military in any way. And it created a lot of splits.

[Interviewer]

It's just funny because there's. You know, in a way it's so comforting to hear about that because obviously in social movements today and social circles today, there are similar divisions. It's just. But also, I don't think the divisions today are between the Marxists and the goddess worshipers and the anarchists necessarily. There's just not enough, like, leftist infrastructure for those divisions to become clear.

[Silvana Nova]

But there was in San Francisco, and especially that. I mean, San Francisco's always been a hotbed of activism and progressive politics and creativity. Creativity, poetry, art and.

[Interviewer]

Larry, when did your art practice begin and what kind of art did you do?

[Larry Hermson]

Well, I studied architecture in College. I was always a drawer. And once I moved to San Francisco, I worked as a graphic artist. And I did some photography. And I just felt like I wanted to do some art that was political and gay, queer, whatever. And the three guys I lived with were also graphic artists. We formed this collective called Too Much Graphics. Because we all had daytime graphics jobs. But then we were doing this stuff in the off hours. More graphics. And it was like, too much graphics. And so I had this idea for a poster, the one that you all know. And, you know, I asked Silvana to be the model.

[Interviewer]

I realize now that it would probably behoove our listeners. If you would just describe the poster for us.

[Larry Hermson]

Oh, sure. Well, it's black background, big pink triangle. And sort of out of this pink triangle. Silvano's image is merging. And bleeds out of the top of the triangle with his arm and fist. Then there's lettering at the top. And below it. At the top, it says, Never again. Below it says Fight Back in large letters. Then there's a byline at the bottom that describes what the pink triangle was. I think we were just learning that. That gay men and lesbians were persecuted by the Nazis.

[Interviewer]

Wow.

[Larry Hermson]

I don't think that was common knowledge.

[Silvana Nova]

It wasn't common knowledge.

[Larry Hermson]

That's why I put that byline on the bottom, you know.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, I was going to ask about that. So at the bottom of the poster, it says. The pink triangle was used to identify the thousands of gay people who died in concentration camps in Nazi Germany. I mean, did you kind of assume, I guess, that people wouldn't know the history?

[Larry Hermson]

Yeah, I wanted it to be educational as well as I wanted to say don't just, you know, I sort of thought of Silvana as, like, the most radical queen that I knew. And so that's why I wanted him in the poster. I had great admiration for you, Silvana.

[Interviewer]

What's your reaction to that?

[Silvana Nova]

I'm a bit surprised. I mean, I'm completely flattered. Totally. But I mean, I just saw myself as just one of the other people who were doing things.

[Interviewer]

Silvana, do you remember getting ready?

[Silvana Nova]

Well, yes, of course. I had to decide what I was gonna wear.

[Larry Hermson]

Well, I think I sort of asked you.

[Interviewer]

Oh, really?

[Silvana Nova]

Did you?

[Larry Hermson]

I can't remember. Well, I said, you know, I want sort of Che Guevara, revolutionary drag. And you had an array.

[Silvana Nova]

And no problem with that?

[Larry Hermson]

Yeah, you know, sort of army surplus and et cetera.

[Silvana Nova]

Yeah. I mean, I just had, like, this funny little plaid shirt that I had on. Plaid? I mean, it Was like, I wasn't a clone. Okay.

[Larry Hermson]

I know.

[Interviewer]

I was gonna say that's very Castro clone of you.

[Silvana Nova]

It was Femi clown, lesbian plaid. And I had a jeans jacket on, I believe.

[Larry Hermson]

I think so.

[Silvana Nova]

And this little long scarf around my neck, of course. And a beret. I mean, that was to be a revolutionary with a star on it, which I used to wear all the time anyway.

[Interviewer]

Oh, is that what that is?

[Silvana Nova]

Yes.

[Interviewer]

I was wondering what that little. It's like. It shows up as a pink dot, kind of.

[Silvana Nova]

It was a lavender star.

[Interviewer]

And were you wearing a wig?

[Silvana Nova]

No, that was my hair.

[Interviewer]

Silvana, had you done any modeling before?

[Silvana Nova]

Every day other than all my life. Every time my parents took a picture.

[Interviewer]

Just backing up a little bit. For those of us who, you know, grew up in the age of computers, how did you make it? Like, how. Without Photoshop, you know, literally, how did you make this poster?

[Larry Hermson]

Well, it was all done by hand. So I shot him in the backyard, his backyard. And I think a whole contact sheet of poses. He was running at me with his arm raised and I think originally had a knife in his hand.

[Interviewer]

Whoa. Really?

[Silvana Nova]

They had to crop it out.

[Larry Hermson]

Had to take that away and just make it a fist. So that's how that worked.

[Interviewer]

Wait, how did you decide to take the knife out?

[Larry Hermson]

I think I just thought it was too violent.

[Silvana Nova]

And I think you made the right decision.

[Interviewer]

That becomes a very different image.

[Larry Hermson]

Yeah, I think it was the right decision. Had to take that away and just make it a fist. So that's how that got there. Graphics was done with paste up and a stack camera. So I took the photo of Silvana and I put it in a stack camera and.

[Interviewer]

Sorry, what's a stack camera?

[Larry Hermson]

Well, it's a.

[Silvana Nova]

You have to explain all of these terms. They're like you're talking about ancient technology.

[Larry Hermson]

It's a big camera that was used for graphics, and it does everything high contrast and halftone. It's oriented vertically rather than horizontally. So you put what you're photographing on the base near the floor, and then the camera parts above that, and it can be adjusted up and down and etc. So what I did with that photograph was I probably made several copies at different exposures, but it turns everything into either black or white.

[Interviewer]

Oh, yeah.

[Larry Hermson]

And, I mean, you can do that in Photoshop, too. But, you know, this was something else. So I. You know, it took a lot of tests to get it just right, to get the amount of detail I wanted or not too much detail or, you know, I might have even used several and cut them apart and piece them back together. You know, that sort of thing. And then. And I don't remember the process exactly, but the lettering was probably letraset, which is a press type thing. And I don't know if you know what that is.

[Interviewer]

No, I don't.

[Larry Hermson]

Well, there were these sort of waxy letters on a plastic sheet that you would put down on paper and rub over it. Like, scribble over it, sort of. You do it like you do with the lotteries that are scratched, you know.

[Interviewer]

Wow.

[Larry Hermson]

So it was a pretty complicated process.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, it sounds extremely labor intensive.

[Larry Hermson]

I mean, we sold that poster and gave the funds to the Briggs Initiative.

[Silvana Nova]

Larry, I'm going to prime you now.

[Larry Hermson]

Okay.

[Silvana Nova]

Selling the poster.

[Larry Hermson]

What about it?

[Silvana Nova]

In Oakland to that book. This is the best story.

[Larry Hermson]

Yeah. So I, for some reason, kind of got to be in charge of taking the poster around to bookstores, mainly that we thought would carry it. And so I took it to this women's bookstore in Oakland. I think it was separatist, so.

[Interviewer]

Meaning separatist, meaning they didn't want to have much to do with gay men.

[Silvana Nova]

Men, period. We were just as bad as the other ones.

[Larry Hermson]

Yeah. If you had a dick, they didn't want you. So, anyway, so I took the poster there, and, I mean, they were nice enough, I guess, but I showed it to them, and they wanted to know if the person in the poster, Silvana, was a man or a woman. And I wouldn't say.

[Interviewer]

Wow. So they were thinking, you know, if there's a man on this poster, we're not selling it in our women's bookstore, Right?

[Larry Hermson]

Yeah. So I didn't tell them, but they took the poster and sold it.

[Interviewer]

Well, maybe it speaks to how intense the anger was about the Briggs Initiative that they were willing to do it anyway.

[Larry Hermson]

Perhaps. Yeah, perhaps. I don't know. Silvana and I and all of us in that radical drag community were feminists. So it wasn't like I went in there with an attitude. You know, I understood their position. And if they'd said no, I probably would have just accepted it and left. But for whatever reason, they took it.

[Interviewer]

Wow. I have to say, not to get all, you know, Oakland lesbian separatist bookstore about it, but when I saw the image, I. I kind of assumed it was a cisgender lesbian in the photo. And that's what I thought until we found you. And I love that so much, until.

[Silvana Nova]

You found out the dirty truth.

[Interviewer]

And then I was like, wow, let me call myself in and Question my assumptions there. But I thought it was so beautiful, especially when I learned the story about how, you know, you were both part of a community that was, in its own way, you know, ostracized or oppressed within the gay scene.

[Larry Hermson]

Yeah. I think a lot of the reason that cloney gay men or other more straight identified gay men didn't like us was that it brought up their own feelings and their own childhood feelings about being sissies and being put down for that, which, you know, I think most gay men had that experience and that they didn't want to be reminded of that, and it made them afraid of us, I think.

[Silvana Nova]

Yeah. Reveling in it was our way of getting over it.

[Larry Hermson]

Right. With a knife.

[Interviewer]

I know. I love that detail. Like, that would have been. That would have been a totally different poster. I want to ask you some more specific questions about this poster. So in one of the episodes in our series, we tell the story of those first gay rainbow flags, and, you know, we talk a little bit about what the rainbow flag represents. How do you see that symbol as different from the pink triangle? Do those represent two different things for you in terms of what they represent in the movement?

[Larry Hermson]

For me, at least, yes, they're different. The rainbow flag is more about inclusiveness, not just of lgbt, et cetera, et cetera. People in the greater mix. And I think Jesse Jackson used the rainbow in his campaign. It's fairly benign, I think. Whereas the pink triangle, at least if you know what it means, it's. It's a lot more.

[Silvana Nova]

Stronger.

[Larry Hermson]

Stronger and more visceral and historical. And historical, yes. Yes. So that's the difference for me. What about you, Silvano?

[Silvana Nova]

Yeah, pretty much the same thing. I think it's historical and it's very strong, and the history is very intense. And although the rainbow flag represents gay liberation, which has its own set of history and oppression, its use is much more benign. I mean, the pink triangle was used in this poster, and then ACT UP used it, but it was. It's. Every time it's used, it's very strong. Whereas the rainbow flag can be used, and it's just like a little flag you can wave.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. I do feel like even still, my friends and I will make a distinction between, like, pink triangle gaze and rainbow flag gaze. Like, it. They feel very, very different to me, especially now with the association with ACT up. It feels like the pink triangle is very much more associated with political activism. I think the rainbow flag more with, you know, pride.

[Larry Hermson]

Yeah, yeah. It's more of a social thing, whereas the Pink triangle is more political, I think. But what I would say.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Silvana Nova]

Yes.

[Larry Hermson]

As some people have said, the style of the poster kind of predated what the style of what act up was doing in their graphics, which was very bold and in your face and not pretty. And I don't know if that's true, but I'd like to think it is.

[Silvana Nova]

They're so related graphically. Like silence equals death is so related to that.

[Larry Hermson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Interviewer]

How does it feel to you to have your work kind of stand the test of time like that and be associated with this big.

[Larry Hermson]

Well, it's pretty great. You know, the New York Public Library has it in their collection, and they did a show and it was in that. And then a catalog was or a book was written about graphics used in the gay movement, and it's included in that. The Lesbian Gay Historical Society has it. And then when the Harvey Milk terminal opened at San Francisco Airport a few years ago, they used it on the wall, nine feet tall.

[Interviewer]

Wow.

[Larry Hermson]

So it's been surprising. Yeah, it's been surprising and gratifying because it was almost 50 years ago, and I'm really glad that it still speaks to people.

[Silvana Nova]

You know, I always thought it looked great. I thought. I mean, graphically, I thought it was beautiful. The colors I love. It's so bold with the black background. And, of course, I was happy and proud to be on it. It was exciting. I mean, the fact that it's still coming up to auction in places and stuff like that is so. I think it's great. And I think it does speak to how universal and timeless the message is and how it doesn't look dated at all. Yeah, I've dated, but it hasn't.

[Interviewer]

I just have a couple more questions, more about, you know, stuff happening today. One of the reasons why we wanted to explore this story now is because of this resurgent, anti queer, anti trans backlash that's gaining steam around the country. I know. What has it been like for you, for both of you, to watch this sort of same narrative of gay people as groomers and recruiters and, you know, child molesters take hold?

[Silvana Nova]

Didn't we learn any lessons? It's like, do we really have to go through this again? And the only thing I can do is fight back is try to turn that ship around in whatever way that is possible for me. But it's quite demoralizing to see that after so much progress and so much struggle that things are being allowed to revert back.

[Interviewer]

What has it been like for you, Larry?

[Larry Hermson]

Well, first of all, I just find it shocking that there's still people that think like, that. I thought we were. I just. Maybe it's just from living on the west coast, and I'm out of touch with the rest of the country, but I don't know. I'm from Iowa, and even though it's a red state, it's pretty good about gay stuff. I mean, my uncle and his partner lived in my little hometown in rural Iowa for years and years, and they were totally out. And, you know, Iowa was one of the first states to have gay marriage, so it's confusing. I think that we're being used to generate fear of the other.

[Silvana Nova]

Absolutely. I think also that you can look at things and say it's a gloomy scenario, but I. You know, I'm a positive person. I feel like it's always like, you go uphill a little bit, then go down a bit, and then you keep going. But the. There's a curve, and the curve is going up, and I feel like if we just keep at it, we'll get there. It's discouraging at this point in my life to think that, yep, I still have to get out there and work and struggle. You know, I thought things might get taken care of by this time in my life, but they haven't. And, I mean, that's just reality. So you just have to keep doing it and hoping you're pushing the needle a little bit.

[Interviewer]

Maybe you need to pose for another poster.

[Larry Hermson]

Let's come up with a new one.

[Interviewer]

Well, thank you both so much. And again, I really can't thank you enough for allowing us to use that beautiful image. It's really just perfect.

[Larry Hermson]

Sure.

[Interviewer]

To represent our show.

[Silvana Nova]

Good. I'm glad that worked.

[Larry Hermson]

Happy to.