During Pride month, I spent a majority of my days people-watching in Stonewall Park. I observed people from around the world coming to commemorate the revolution known as the Stonewall Riots. Tour groups throughout the city were a dime a dozen; but it was the LGBTQ tour that grabbed my attention. Pride Tour NYC is a historic walking tour designed to honor, celebrate and educate on the history of the LGBTQ uprising. I got into contact with Joe Camerota, one of the guides and creators of NYCPT. He was more than happy to give my assistant, D, and I the grand tour through the Queer Movement followed by an interview.
Joe arrived at Christopher Park holding a rainbow sign reading: PRIDE TOURS NYC. He greeted us warmly and let us know that we were waiting on the rest of the group to begin. We met in the park across the street from The Stonewall Inn; a reminder of where queer liberation began.
The tour was easy to digest and was the perfect amount of time: one hour. Walking was light, and I felt just as I was getting tired, the tour came to a close. Joe’s tour covered between the 1950’s to today. After spending years studying LGBTQ history, I was pleased to learn a few new facts; which helped me uncover answers I had always wanted. D’s experience was different because they are newly out; this was their introduction to learning about our history for the first time. This gave us a lot to talk about after the tour, so we went over to Duplex to chat over drinks. After ordering and settling into our chairs, we jumped straight into the interview:
Alena: Thank you so much for giving us this experience and allowing us to share it. People need to know this history. Also, having this in New York is a great idea! What inspired you to start Pride Tours NYC?
Joe: My partner, Gee-Wey Yue, and I both started in tourism. Tourism is very LGBTQ friendly – it’s awesome – tourism is the greatest industry ever! It is so much fun: you meet the best people in the world. In world tourism, there are a lot of events. A lot of educational events – and sometimes get togethers – all year long we are at these events. Earlier this year, everyone in tourism was talking about World Pride coming this summer, to New York City. Pride happens every year, but this year it was World Pride; 4 million people were estimated to come.
I’ve always been interested in the story of the Stonewall uprising. Out of curiosity, I started to wonder if there was a walking tour. I went and did some research and found out there was not. There was one company who used to do an LGBTQ historical walking tour but are now doing walking tours for the M.E.T. (the Metropolitan Museum of Art). It was after one of these tour events that I went to Gee-Wey and said, “Hey! There is no LGBTQ historical walking tour for World Pride. Would you wanna start one?” He was like, “yeah!” Then we both got excited and went to some other people to see if they wanted to be on board too, but it ended up just being the two of us.
We went to NYC and Company to see if they wanted to be involved. They sanctioned it and through them we got linked up with Heritage of Pride. We asked Heritage of Pride if we could be an official World Pride event. They put us on the website, and we started to build out. We worked in tourism, so we learned how to build out into the world of tourism in what’s called the travel trade. People started to come and since then it’s been a big hit. We have 5 stars on Trip advisor. Life is good.
One thing I think is interesting is: there were other tour companies that offered an LGBTQ historical tour, but they weren’t narrative, like ours. They are very trivia based. One thing I love about our tour is that it’s almost like a movie pitch. If I was going to write a movie script about the Stonewall uprising, I would open with a teenager waking up in Christopher Street Park, rubbing their eyes, maybe an officer waking them up. Or maybe Craig Rodwell making coffee in the morning in his apartment above the Oscar Wilde memorial bookshop. I actually don’t know where his apartment was, but the idea of the tour is to create this narrative. That was our goal, so I’m very happy with what we did. And then I think our narrative is only getting better. It’s interesting to see what resonates with people.
A: What is your biggest demographic?
J: We get a lot of LGBTQ intellectuals – It was very successful during pride month – It’s a niche group. I’ve met so many amazing people. I met a guy, Anthony Van Brown, one of the most famous gay men in Australia. He was a Christian preacher who came out to his congregation; a mega church of thousands. He was ostracized from his congregation, and then went on to write best-selling novels about coming out; because he had fallen in love.
Talking to these individuals, (It’s a lot of older gay men,) who have taken the tour has been the most enlightening part. I realized they shed light on how these antiquated prejudges came about and why. What Anthony Van Brown said was before a time period where LGBTQ individuals could be open about their sexuality or gender – even as recent as the 1980’s and 90’s – gay men would have to drive two to three towns over in order to go to a LGBTQ bar or to meet other gay men; all queer people did. They would have to look over their shoulder the entire time hoping no one recognized them. And to hear all of these older gay men tell these stories – it was just such a different time.
Another thing Anthony told me was that queer people would get accused of being promiscuous. Well, think about it – it’s really tough to form a long-lasting relationship with a person if you have to drive three towns over to see them; especially if he were married to a woman living in the closet. It’s a different life. You’re not going to be able to form deep relationships. Deep relationships take work, they take investment; it’s not something that just happens.
A: Absolutely. I can only imagine what that could do to someone’s psyche. I have been told that a lot of older LGBTQ people carry shame that has been taught to them. Do you ever find that shame is still ingrained in them?
J: It’s interesting that you ask that. There was one older couple that came to pride. After Pride they were going to Minnesota to meet one of the men’s family to finally come out and say, “hey I’m married!” This guy was in his 50’s and his family had no idea. He’s from a different generation.
We cheers to freedom.
A: I find a lot of LGBTQ entrepreneurs find they are the first – or one of the firsts in their industry. Do you think there are problems that this tour is helping to solve?
J: This tour has been one of the biggest honors of my life. Getting a chance to write the narrative history and being a person who gets to share that narrative history is so huge. While working behind the scenes, I get to see what an honor it is to even do this tour. Sometimes I feel like a college professor. The plan is to do this tour year after year and maybe, after my sixth or seventh year, some college will come and ask me to teach. If you do enough research, you eventually become a historian.
A: What are common questions and afterthoughts of the tour?
J: People always have questions about the political climate. A lot of Europeans ask questions like “what are you guys still fighting for? Don’t you have all your rights by now?” So, I think there is a sense that America is beating a dead horse. America’s culture is such a melting pot, and still loves to fight. I think it comes from our sports culture. If you listen to people, you’ll think “you need an identity”.
I’m so in love with everything LGBTQ because there is this reframing of the truth. It is the result of enlightenment and humanity; refining our microscope. Back in the day we used this broad under-over system. It’s either men or women – gay or straight – and eventually homosexuality was acknowledged. It really is just refining the microscope – people started with “you’re either gay or straight” and then we redefined the microscope and it became: “okay well some people are gay or straight, but some people are attracted to both sexes.” then it was redefined again, where people felt attracted to both sexes but some people said ”I’m more sexually attracted to one and emotionally attracted to the other.” So, then that was a further reframing to pansexual etc. Then we redefined it again and found some people were nonbinary or two spirited. It goes on and on and it’s all completely valid. People speak about it in different terms because they see it in different ways; it’s a spectrum and it’s all valid. People are afraid of the under-over system because they are afraid, they wouldn’t be top dog anymore – there is no alpha male. Spectrums throw old systems in the trash and that frightens people. When you refine the microscope; the whole system falls apart. The world is changing. Evil is coming to the surface for the final fight, but it’ll fall apart. We’re in a movement towards peace.
A: Being in tourism, have you developed any new passions?
J: The plans to grow the company are to open it up to LGBTQ shows and artists– this is a seasonal tour – but there are so many amazing underground artists in NYC. There are so many shows that are only 50%-75% full. I feel bad for people who don’t live in cities because the best art is live art. There are so many underground artists in NYC, everywhere you look; it’s really amazing. We want to become a marketer for these shows and introduce them to the travel trade. Eventually, I would love to be a promotor for shows, like this in large scale theaters; but for the travel trade.
D: I like that you brought up the civil rights movement during the tour. To what extent do you think the LGBTQ movement has been moving towards including the marginalized communities within the LGBTQ communities.
J: Information has exploded everywhere. To reach an equilibrium of truth, you have to send the pendulum back in the other way. I think everything can be fixed if you add a dislike button. There has been a change when truth is around us now more than ever. Information is so vast. Anyone can come towards the truth. However, there are also so many lies and half-truths that get validated all the time, and I swear because it’s only a like button. For instance, Trump posts something, there is like a million likes. When you read the comments, you see they aren’t all likes. I wish we had a dislike button for perspective. We are at a stage of enlightenment that we can recognize bullying. Now what’s happening is that the bullies have learned to take advantage of the system. The media makes it seems like things are getting worse, but the truth is just out there more than ever. There is a lot of B.S. that goes on, but I think it has gotten a little better. A lot of it is generational. There are a lot of people in the LGBTQ community – some people don’t hire LGBTQ people still. Again, its generational, and older people die off.
D: More specifically: How do you see communities like the trans community, –
J: Being transgender is as easy to understand as sexuality. A lot of people struggle with it – I don’t understand that. It makes perfect sense to me. People try to study it scientifically, but you can’t see the mind, except on paper. The way they identify a transgender person is so intricate. A person can go see a phycologist and say “I identify as a woman. I’m trying on women’s clothes, I put on a macho act, and its truly an act for me.” The doctor says “okay take this test” 100,000’s of people have taken it. What they do is the average woman answers one way and the average man answers like this regardless of the body of a woman or man. These tests have hundreds of questions and are very much on a subconscious level. It would be very hard to fake these tests because there are answers that will indicate if someone is just saying that. What they have found is that mentally they in fact are the other. They aren’t lying they scored perfectly in the specs of for what they don’t appear to be. So, yeah, I’m sure life’s a struggle for them. That person is hanging out in dudes circles they don’t identify with at all. These people have these tendencies but aren’t experiencing that biological side of it. We can never fully give that person that, but we can do our best. Should that person want to explore that, on the outside or inside. They can say life would be easier.
I’ll share this, because it is easier for me to understand in this way. I am an intersex individual. When I went through puberty, my body would produce a bunch of estrogen and I grew large breast. At the age of 23, I had to get two breast reductions to look like a normal man. It was just easier for me to fit into a box because feeling in the middle is just weird. I’m sure in the future, people will understand. It was so appealing to get my breast removed because I was like now, I can fit in and balance out my life. It appears to be out of sync, but it’s not. Society is out of sync. I guess you could use the occult phrase “As above, so below.” We’re trying to match the outsides, trying to come to the vibe equilibrium, trying to have our outsides match our insides.
A: Thank you for sharing that with us! We’re living in an interesting time.
D: How do you think it’s changed for people of color?
J: I feel like I’m not the right person to speak to that. Here is why: That movie, 21 jump street, remember Justin Hires? He’s the African American individual who gets punched in the face by Channing Tatum. In the movie, Tatum call Hires’ character “gay” and Hire’s character says, “you punched me in the face because I’m gay?” Channing Tatum doesn’t know he is gay; it’s a euphemism. Do you remember that? I used to do stand-up comedy in L.A., and I got a chance to meet Justin Hires. Justin told me that while on set, Jonah Hill came to him about an idea. “Let’s have a scene where we play spin the bottle, the bottle lands on me, and I’m drunk and we make-out!” Jonah was trying to convince Justin saying, “please do this! It’ll be huge for your career; you’ll be the guy that made out with Jonah hill!” Justin, who ended up on the show MacGyver
on CBS, said “No.” He told me the reason was because he grew up in L.A. His fan base was coming out of Compton. He said that if he was in a movie making out with Jonah Hill, he would lose his fan base. I was like, “no way, dude; people wouldn’t celebrate that? You’re an actor!” He said, “no you don’t understand. I would have lost my African American fan base.”
I can’t speak to that as a white man. He said it’s a cultural thing and that in some communities, some people are still homophobic. That’s a tough thing. You’re talking about a community that rose out of a lot of struggles through Christianity. Stuff like that sticks generationally, so it takes time. At the same time, things aren’t always the same on the surface. I always wonder if he would have been celebrated and got famous from making out with Jonah Hill. Potentially shot to the top of fame and some big thing that would have knocked down the door. I don’t know how many of our boundaries are imagined, and how may are real. From what he told me; the community has homophobia in it, but I can’t speak to that.
D: Where do you find the most joy in the queer community?
J: The diversity. Most everyone in the LGBTQ community are minorities. Most LGBTQ individuals are just brave, marginalized people who aren’t afraid to be themselves. You’ll see the community grow as more people start to come out of the archaic over-under systems. It’s a philosophy game, because there’s always another layer to the onion. I love the phrase “every word you don’t know is an idea you don’t know.” Friends of mine who are bilingual tell me they can’t translate certain words. That means they have an idea that is completely inaccessible to me. It’s cool. Just like when you get bisexual people together and you realize how many variations of the word there are. Refining our thoughts, your thoughts become more abstract.
A: Has this changed you?
J: Meeting all of these individuals on these tours allows me to cherish them and see them everywhere.
I think the story of stonewall is everyone’s story. All of the people who’ve come on the tour or taken interest. It’s a story of oppression. The 60’s were about all of these groups standing up for themselves. Standing up for yourself is very tribal. Of course, the LGBTQ community is a tribe in that way. What’s interesting about the movement is that it is reframing reality- a truer truth. It’s been an over-under system. The under over system means: Male: female – Straight: gay. The over-under system – these are the boxes. Because we do have to deal with one another, we use categorization. So, we have to break down the boxes. We can rewrite a better truth than the current truth. What’s so amazing is we all know it, too.*
Since the first season of the tour, Pride Tours NYC have raving reviews and have nothing less than 5 stars. They’ve also hosted tours with people who were at the Stonewall Inn the night of the uprising. Joe hopes to continue his teachings, and to eventually hold a place in history educating students on the Queer Movement. Until then, go meet Joe and learn from this must-see tour you didn’t know you needed.
For more information, check out: https://pridetoursnyc.com/
1.) https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g60763-d17386307-Reviews-Pride_Tours_NYC-New_York_City_New_York.html
