LGBTQ+ Issues

Book Critic John Leonard reviews two new biographies of Roy Cohn, the counsel for the Senate committee conducting the McCarthy trials, and McCarthy's aide and confidante.

Drs. William Masters, Virginia Johnson and Robert Kolodny discuss their controversial book Crisis: Heterosexual Behavior in the Age of AIDS. They argue in the book that the risk to the heterosexual population posed by the AIDS virus has been dramatically understated. Drs. Masters and Johnson are best-known for their work on sexuality, particularly the book Human Sexual Response. Also, a seven-minute interview with Nancy Padian, who is directing a California study into the transmission of AIDS in heterosexual couples.

Critic-at-Large Laurie Stone explores the humor of Rodney Dangerfield, the comic who has built a career on getting no respect. Dangerfield is now performing on Broadway.

Stand-up comic Reno. Her routines lampoon current sexual politics.

Canadian author Jane Rule, one of the best known and most widely read lesbian writers. Rule is best known for her 1985 novel Desert of the Heart, which was later adapted into the movie "Desert Hearts." Her new book is titled Memory Board.

Kate Clinton. She's a stand-up comedian whose routines focus on sexual politics.

Randy Shilts, author of And the Band Played On - Politics, People and the AIDS Epidemic, a controversial book that reveals the identity of the first person to the bring AIDS to the United States. The book also raises questions about the government's response to the crisis.

Playwright Albert Innaurato. His works include the long-running hit "Gemini," "Coming of Age in SoHo" and "The Transformation of Benno Blimpie."

Michael Denneny a senior editor at St. Martin's Press. His latest project is a small press called Stonewall Inn Editions, specializing in gay literature.

Playwrights William M. Hoffman and Larry Kramer are gay men whose recent work has grappled with the effect of AIDS on their communities. They share their frustrations with the inaction both amongst government agencies and gay people themselves to meaningfully address the epidemic.

The latest installment of Armistead Maupin's series, Significant Others, confronts the AIDS epidemic and its effect on the gay male community.

Stephen Frears directed a new biopic about the life and death of the gay British playwright called Prick Up Your Ears.

Graham Chapman came out while working on the sketch comedy show Monty Python's Flying Circus. He discusses his activism to support gay rights, as well as the many times the television program lampooned conventional masculinity.

Scandals involving Robert Bauman's alcoholism and soliciting of an underage male prostitute heralded the end of this career as a Maryland congressman. He writes about the experience and how he came to peace with his identity in his new book, The Gentleman from Maryland.

Novelist Rita Mae Brown joins Fresh Air to discuss her participation in the 1960s and 1970s in civil rights, women's, and gay and lesbian movements.

Novelist Rita Mae Brown is known for her lesbian and "Southern" fiction. She joins the show to discuss her family and growing up in the South. Brown's latest novel is "High Hearts."

Vito Russo, author of The Celluloid Closet analyzes how gays have been portrayed in films.

Philadelphia Ed Hermance is named as a co-conspirator in an obscenity trial in England for smuggling "obscene" materials to London's prominent gay bookstore Gay's the Word. Hermance is the co-owner of Philadelphia's Giovanni's Room, a gay and feminist bookstore, and he believes the trial represents discrimination.

On the second part of this special edition of Fresh Air addressing the AIDS epidemic, Terry Gross speaks with writer Dennis Altman, author of the new book "AIDS in the Mind of America." One of its subjects is the impact of the disease on the gay male community. The Australian Altman has previously written about the gay movement, and worked with the Institute for Health Policy Studies at the University of California Medical School. Altman offers his thoughts on whether AIDS should be considered a "gay disease."

Webber and Gross respond to listener calls about the legal and media aspects of the AIDS crisis.