Ben Edgar Williams

Jeremy: Thanks for joining us today. If you wanna start just by introducing
yourself and talking a little bit about your practices as a self-appointed LGBT
historian…

Ben: My name is Ben Williams and I have been known as the amateur gay historian
of Utah, primarily because of my interest in, being a pack-rat, gathering things. And
what gay person doesn’t love to gossip? The difference with my needs is that I wrote
down the gossip. You know, more than that, actually. I graduated from college in
history; I’ve always had an interest in history. I’ve done extensive family histories
and I joined historical societies back when I was in college and did reports on
history. I just love any aspects of history. As I became active in the Salt Lake
community, I knew that we were making history and I think that takes a certain
awareness. I think you’d probably have to have a background in, maybe, history or
have some interest in historical events to actually recognize that history is being
made. Most people probably think that history is just a matter of huge events or
politicians doing something, or some kind of decree or law being passed or
something. Actually, history is our ordinary, everyday lives or how we change our
perspectives on the world.

I knew a lot of really fascinating people. And when I came out of the closet in 1986, I
was 30; well the second time I came out of the closet I was 35 years old and I
decided there’s no time to waste anymore, you know, with this. Always used the
analogy that I came out like Minerva came out of the head of Jupiter, just battle-
ready to go and get involved. Immediately, I was involved with creating
organizations and forming groups and getting people to socially inter-net and
connect with people, before there was the internet. I didn’t try to, like, take over any
organizations, I just decided to create my own. There were some really valuable
organizations that were already established in this community. And there were a lot
of activists that were doing things that really didn’t represent anybody but
themselves and their ideas of activism. So the groups I formed were, basically, peer
therapy type thing or peer support. No one had degrees, nobody had doctorates or
masters or social work degrees, what we had were our common experiences. And
our common experiences is what healed us and bonded us together. I think because
I was not a teacher at this time, but I’ve always been a teacher, and so I was able to
lead organizations and connect people and get people involved in things. And also
connect with other leaders of other organizations, so that we – wanted to build a
community.

When the [unintelligible] states conference came here in ’89, I was asked to do a
workshop on community building, because they just said, “who builds community?”
Ben Williams. And so, I was doing it kind of naturally, because it just had to be done,
there was a vacuum here and it needed to be filled. I was younger and a lot more
energetic to do things. I always have a vision of what this community could be and
what this community needed. And I also knew that this needed to be recorded; this
needed to be remembered.
While we were doing this - we were doing amidst the AIDS epidemic, so not only
were we trying to build a community, but we were taking care of the sick and dying
without any help from anyone else but ourselves. To me it was a heroic age and
people like Ben Barr and Bruce Barton and Russ Lane – people that were doing all
this because it had to be done, not because they were gettin’ paid for it or were
gonna get accolades for anything. If anything, they put themselves right in the bulls-
eye for targets of criticism from straight and gay communities.

But, we were small enough community that we all knew each other and we – one of
the real catalysts that helped build this community was the Gay and Lesbian
Community Council of Utah, which I was secretary of it twice, because they always
said, “well that’s what you do, Ben, you take history,” so they named me secretary.
And that was an organization that, where, monthly, the heads of all the different
organizations in the community got together and they talked and fought and battled
and squawked and cussed and bitched and gossiped and everything else; but the
most important aspect was that we knew each other. We actually really knew who
we were doing things with in the community. We had face-on-face, you know… it
wasn’t like I didn’t know who was running LGSU; I knew exactly, because they were
attending; I knew these people; I knew who was doing the Metropolitan Community
Church; I knew who was doing Affirmation; I knew who was doing additional
support; I knew who was doing the Royal Court, you know and the gay men’s group
and the father’s group and the Utah Valley Men’s Group in Logan’s and Cache Valley
Alliance people, because they all came to the meetings.

And so there was a real connection with, among ourselves and I think that was our
real strength. That’s what, really, I think, created the foundation of the community
here in Salt Lake; that we had a gay identity here. And a lot of the people that came
out and were doing things, channeled themselves through the Community Council,
like Cathy Worthington, you know, here she was introduced to the community
through the Community Council, just by showing up. Then she started the women’s
community newsletter, then all the organizations that she did with the local lesbian
community. So I mean, people would come to this community, to the Community
Council and say, “Hey! We’re doing this.” You know? This group is doing this and we
got to know the new leaders that were coming too.

Then, it was really a diverse group of people: we had the Wasatch Leathermen as
well as LGSU; and before the Community Council and before this community
building there was really kind of a division in this community between the
organizations. The LGSU people were thought of as egg-heads, Ivy-league, ivory-
tower people and the bar people would have nothing, really, to do with them, or
have anything to do with them. Affirmation was seen as being too “religious” and
“Mormon” and, so people would do with that. There wasn’t really a lot of
communication between the different organizations, certain organizations that were
really powerful, like Royal Court, they had the “muscle” and the money and the staff
to put together, like, a Pride Day. But it was not a real “community” event, it was a
community event hosted by people from the Royal Court. Or the time that
Affirmation did it, it was basically Pride Day held by Affirmation. It was only the
Community Council form that they took over Pride Day and made it a sub-
committee of Community Council, actually then made it a community event, where
the Community Council chose who was the chair of the committee and then the
committee was responsible – the chair of the committee and the committee itself –
was responsible to the Community Council to do monthly reporting. We always
knew how much money they had; we knew what their problems were, we knew the
fundraising, you know, and it was a community event, which, you know, with the
Pride Day as it is today, it’s such a huge self-important kind of, you know, juggernaut
type thing with a life of its own. It’s… it CAN be a community event, I really do
believe that, I don’t wanna be negative; I think you can get involved with, you know,
Pride Day if you choose to be involved with Pride Day. But not in the way that it
used to be, you know? You could be involved in Pride Day today, but you’re
probably not involved in the decision-making aspect of Pride Day. Where, with the
Gay and Lesbian Community Council, you’d be involved in the decision-making
aspect of Pride Day.

And we also, like, always knew the budget; we’d know exactly how much was being
made or lost or whatever. And it was an accounting to the community, because
there were delegates that came from other organizations; they’d send delegates
from other organizations would send delegates to the Community Council; and
those delegates had voting privileges, and they would take the information from the
Community Council and go back to their respective organizations and tell their
members what’s going on. So there was really huge, you know, communication
going on within this community.

About the mid 1990s, volunteerism in the community tankered off and people
became more comfortable with this being “out”; that once the community had been
established, that people could feel like they could be “out” and wouldn’t hurt their
professional jobs, people – a lot of these organizations started becoming
“professional” and they wanted people with master degrees in social work or some
kind of, you know, degrees in community planning or something, you know, where –
I’m not saying, necessarily, that it’s wrong but it changes the whole dynamic: doing
something because you’re getting paid for it as opposed to doing something because
you’re volunteering for love of the community.

Even things like the Utah Aids Foundation, which was all created by volunteers; I
mean, no one got a dime or a salary. Doctor Patty Reagan, Ben Barr… all these
people – we had our own jobs. My job was being a school-teacher and that gave me
the money to be able to be active in the community. They’d give me my Summers off
– that’s why I stayed teaching for so long: so that I’d have so much time away from
work to actually be involved in community building. I always said there’s three
reasons why I taught, and that was good reasons I taught, and that was June, July
and August. And people used to ask me all the time, “Well, don’t you work in the
summer; don’t you get a second job?” (My colleagues.) And I’d say, “No, I like to
travel and things like that.” Hell, all I wanted to do at that time was to help with
Pride Day, help with, you know, putting the Utah Stonewall Center together, or
writing histories, or you know, doing things that needed to be done for the
community.

I think things seemed to be turning a little bit with this Proposition 8. I think
younger people are not feeling that professionals are moving at a fast enough pace,
because…

Interview interrupted by library staff; we were subsequently told to leave and

to request “permission” to film or record in the library’s space. Folllow-up
interviews were requested by QOHP facilitators but have not since been
scheduled.