- Coming up on "One Detroit," it's LGBTQ History Month.

We'll show you how Michigan has made an impact on LGBTQ+ history in our Emmy-winning special report.

Plus, a member of Detroit's trans community shares her faith journey in our Faith in Detroit series.

It's all coming up next on "One Detroit."

- [Announcer One] Across our Masco family of companies, our goal is to deliver better living possibilities and make positive changes in the neighborhoods where we live, work, and do business.

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Support also provided by the Cynthia & Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit PBS.

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(upbeat music) - Hello, I'm Zosette Guir, and this is "One Detroit."

October is LGBTQ History Month.

It's a time to recognize the history, struggles, and achievements of the LGBTQ+ community.

In honor of the national observance, we're re-airing our "One Detroit" special report about Michigan's contributions to LGBTQ+ history.

I was a part of the team for this Emmy Award-winning story, along with my colleagues, Bill Kubota, and Chris Jordan.

The report focuses on local LGBTQ+ milestones, including Michigan's first Pride March in 1972.

Take a look.

(indistinct chatters) Ferndale Pride 2025, the stretch of nine-mile road helping kick off Pride Month in Southeastern Michigan.

It's one of the biggest in the state.

- We've been doing this for 15 years now.

We're considered one of the big six Pride events, and so for me, that is kind of our little mark of fame, but we are one of the smallest towns of those big six.

And so now we have these opportunities to show all these people who I like you in one setting and just say, "It's okay to be you today.

You're going to find someone else who's like you, and you're gonna have a really good time and embrace who you are."

- [Zosette] Jaye Spiro owns a martial arts studio on Nine Mile.

Ferndale Pride is outside her front door.

- It is just baffling to me how much we have been embraced as gay and lesbian people, that these prides are huge now.

- [Zosette] It started in New York City, 1970, with the Christopher Street Gay Liberation Day March, commemorating the time a year before when demonstrators clashed with police after a raid at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Manhattan.

Pride marches would spread nationwide, coming to Detroit in 1972.

- When the idea came to the fore in Michigan to have a pride march, and a pride celebration, and start having activities, they named it Christopher Street Detroit.

So that's where the name comes from.

I should note that Christopher Street comes from the name of the street that the Stonewall Inn was on.

- [Zosette] In Farmington Hills, a history lesson for Pride Month they're hearing about happenings 53 years ago.

- And part of this early Pride week was the opening of Detroit's first LGBTQ community center.

- [Zosette] The community center located in the Virginia Park neighborhood.

Tim Retzloff's been collecting this history for years, researching things like this GLF banner.

That's for the Gay Liberation Front.

- It's an heirloom for our community, so it's a really important artifact.

- [Zosette] It's on display at the Detroit Historical Museum for the next few months.

Part of an exhibit about a comic book titled "Come Out in Detroit," in which Retzloff drew from oral histories to recreate Christopher Street Detroit '72.

- This is my favorite page from "Come Out in Detroit" because it goes to show just how many people were there.

This wasn't 15 or 20 people marching down Woodward Avenue.

This was many people marching down Woodward Avenue.

- We decided this is the way to tell this story.

It's the origin story.

That's what comic books are known for, is the origin stories.

We know where Bruce Wayne, and Superman, and Spider-Man come from.

It kind of fit into being a comic book that way.

- [Zosette] "Come out in Detroit's" illustrator is Isabel Clare Paul.

- I didn't know very much about it at all starting out, and so getting to do that research, and learn that history, and have access to all these old stories was really kind of special to me.

Pretty heavy topic, but the best way we can get around it is bringing an air of joy to it.

This was the same weekend they went to Palmer Park.

- It's really strange to get old, and then what you did in your youth is actually history.

- [Zosette] Susan Swope lives near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, but she'd been an anti-war activist at the University of Michigan, then studying law at Wayne State University.

- In high school, I realized I was lesbian, but I did not have a word for it.

I thought I was the only one in the world.

That's what it was like growing up in a small town in the '50s and '60s.

- At first, I was pretty closeted, although I might not have said I'm a lesbian, it was clear.

- Lesbianism wasn't really up in the front of people's consciousness.

Gay men were much more though about.

- You're seeking people like you, was it hard?

- It was very hard.

Well, it was illegal.

Being gay was actually illegal.

So you had to be very much more secreted and closeted in those days.

I mean, I was a teacher.

Would you want your children to be taught by gays?

They'll corrupt their minds.

- Having come from the student activist movement against the war, what I understood was the power of acting as a group and of marches, and rallies, and public protests.

- Our whole generation that came from the Civil Rights Movement and the anti-war movement, I mean, we were dead serious.

The gay and lesbian movement just had a... Yeah, we were fighting against oppression and homophobia, but we were also, it was a big party, and we were having fun, and we were coming out, and we were free.

And so it was a very different energy and you can really catch that.

- [Zosette] Merrilee Melvin helped organize the march.

- It was quite an ordeal to put this together 'cause we were just kinda making it up as we went along.

- Were there other things that you were involved in leading up to the march?

- It was very helpful to find this press release that I wrote.

- [Zosette] The first line, "If Michigan gay activists have their way, Detroit will never be the same again after June 24 and 25."

- So I am so proud of us.

We were reaching out.

This was sent far and wide.

We were encouraging people to come from all over Michigan and from Canada.

- They had matchbooks made.

Lots of people were still smoking at the time.

That was a way to kind of get the word out.

They had stickers made, they had buttons made, they had T-shirts made.

- I came up with the idea for our logo, but the idea was a butterfly with an arm and a fist for the body and the head of the butterfly.

And it said, "Come Out."

- My friend Susan Swope asked if they would be willing to pay me $25 a week to be an official event organizer, and they said yes.

And so I felt like I was the first professional paid lesbian in Detroit.

- [Zosette] Marrilee Melvin gave the marching orders.

- The morning of the march down Woodward from, I think maybe Wayne State to Kennedy Square, which no longer exists in downtown Detroit, it was raining, of course.

- Susan Swope was the one lesbian that we know spoke at it.

- My own personal fear was I was still married.

My husband knew I was a lesbian and we were working through that, but I hadn't come out to his parents, and they lived in Detroit, and I was gonna speak, and the TV cameras were gonna be there.

But in the end, what they showed on TV was not the speeches, but the drag queens who had been sitting on the hood of a car, and when the car stopped, they slid off the front of the car.

Ha, ha!

- Christopher Street was a combination that we're here, and we're queer, and we want the laws against us change 'cause there were still laws against gay men in particular.

- For most of us, we didn't fit in.

So the march was a place where you could celebrate who you were.

- It felt good.

It gave purpose to my life.

I've always wanted to help people and here I was helping my own community.

- [Zosette] Another speaker at the march, Jim Toy, an Ann Arbor resident active in Detroit.

- This is another great picture of Jim Toy.

This is more what he looked like at the time.

- [Zosette] Toy, already an activist, was part of the Detroit Walk to Freedom March in 1963.

- He heard Martin Luther King give the first version of the "I Have a Dream" speech in Detroit.

- [Zosette] Toy was among those protesting the Vietnam War before Christopher Street.

- They took part in the anti-war movement rally that was held in April of 1970, and that's where Jim Toy became the first person to publicly come out as gay in Michigan.

- And a lot of people have asked him, "Did you plan to come out in that speech?"

And he said, "Well, I wasn't planning to speak and do that that day, but I just decided that's what I would do just a few minutes beforehand."

- I probably said, "My name is Jim Toy.

I'm 40 years old, and I'm a gay man."

Well, I had not thought about the press, and the Detroit Free Press, and the Detroit News were there and they published articles, and so I was out.

- [Zosette] Jim Toy died in 2022.

Born in 1930 to a white mother and Chinese father, he grew up in a small town in Ohio.

He married, divorced amicably, and found Detroit's gay community, traveling often from Ann Arbor with a friend.

- We called ourselves the Detroit Gay Liberation Movement.

John and I driving in there two and three times a week for meetings in his car said to each other, "You know, this is ridiculous.

Let's start a group in Ann Arbor."

So we did.

- [Zosette] Toy's papers are held in the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan, the school where he made his biggest mark, advocating for LGBTQ+ students.

In 1971, Toy helped create what was called the Human Sexuality Office.

- They had so many people come after them, including regents.

There were regents that were hell bent on destroying that office.

- [Zosette] That office is considered the first of its kind, now known as the Spectrum Center.

- It's not likely that there was an office anywhere in the world that preceded ours, and we have never learned that there has been.

- Jim really believed in the power of institutions to change from within, and he was controversial in this way.

Some of the radicals thought, you've got to tear the old institutions down.

- [Zosette] Toy kept working, receiving an honorary doctorate from the University of Michigan in 2021.

- No one knows how Jim didn't burn out.

I mean, it was so draining what he did.

- He was a friend to me, a mentor, somebody who was one of my earliest supporters in running for county commission eight years ago.

- [Zosette] Jason Morgan, an openly gay state representative, first took that office in 2022.

He grew up in a small town north of Bay City, but moved to Ann Arbor.

- Then I found this incredible community in Ann Arbor that wasn't just okay with people being gay.

They embraced it, and celebrated it, and really supported me as just a human being, as an individual.

And I would say didn't care if I was gay, but no, they did.

They cared in a really positive way.

- [Zosette] Ann Arbor led the nation observing Gay Pride Week in 1972.

- And then last but not least, in terms of the gay liberation period, Kathy Kozachenko ran as an out lesbian in Ann Arbor in 1974.

- [Zosette] Kathy Kozachenko ran for city council and won.

- This is my favorite picture from back in that era, that this is me.

- [Zosette] The first out person to win public office in the nation.

- We knew that it was a first, but there's no way that I would have ever thought that I would be talking about it 50 years later.

And in fact, my niece Chelsea called me one day and says, "Hey, Aunt Kath, do you realize you have a Wikipedia page?"

And I'm like, "What?"

- [Zosette] Kozachenko lives in Pittsburgh these days.

- When I talk about that time period, people have to remember that what I'm talking about is a very liberal, liberal isn't even the word, radical college campus.

So things were different where I was than they were in the rest of the country.

- [Zosette] At U of M, she was another '60s activist fighting for better conditions for farm workers.

- I found an organization called the Human Rights Party that sort of articulated my passion for economic justice as well as social justice.

- Two Human Rights Party candidates had already won Ann Arbor City Council seats in 1972.

Jerry DeGrieck and Nancy Wechsler would be the first openly gay elected officials who came out after they were elected.

They spearheaded the campaign for Gay Pride Week, but were leaving office as Kozachenko started her city council run.

- Young man, we started talking.

He said, "I'm really religious."

And I'm like, "Oh, okay."

And he says, "But God works in mysterious ways.

I'm gonna vote for you."

And I said, "Thank you."

So I had that instance, and then I had another less pleasant instance, and I knocked on this door and I talked to these two young women, and as I was walking away, I could sort of hear them sort of giggling.

One said to the other one, "That was her.

That was her.

Did you see her looking at you?

Did you see her checking you out?"

And I really wanted to go back and knock on their door and say, "It's not like that.

You can't transfer the way men react to women with how lesbians relate to women and to relate to each other."

But I wasn't brave enough to do that, so I just shook it off and went on to the next door.

- [Zosette] Kozachenko won by 109 votes in award well-populated by college students.

She served one term.

Since then, there's been more representation in public office.

There's Michigan's Attorney General, and in the state legislature, six representatives and one senator make up the LGBTQ+ caucus.

- We are still at seven today, and that is huge.

That is massive progress for our state.

And most of us didn't run as, "Oh, we're just running as a gay person."

We ran as community members stepping up to run and serve everybody in our community, but it does matter that we are at the table when decisions are being made and that we are represented.

- [Zosette] 50 years later, Kathy Kozachenko has a different mission.

She's following the deportations of hundreds of people to El Salvador, including gay makeup artist, Andry Jose Hernandez Romero.

- It touched my heart and outraged me at the same time.

This has sparked a passion in me, and it's one way to take a little piece and to say, "I'm not gonna forget this man."

- [Zosette] This June, she's working pride events like this one in Jamestown, New York, an activist reactivated today.

- It's really applicable today where it's like you have to take care of each other, you have to stand up, you got to start doing stuff to make things happen, otherwise it's never gonna happen.

And just to say, no, hey, you need to treat us better than that.

- What would you say to someone who is watching and maybe has that similar feeling to when you were younger?

- Find your people and work with them.

- The relationship between transgender individuals and the church can be challenging and complicated.

Detroit trans advocate Julisa Abad talked about her religious journey as part of the Faith in Detroit project led by Christchurch Cranbrook.

Detroit PBS is one of several partners in the initiative, which share stories of faith and resilience.

Abad, a trans woman, sat down with Faith in Detroit Executive Director, Father William Danaher to discuss how faith impacts her work in the LGBTQ+ community.

(piano music) - There is something that I'm noticing when I listen to trans stories of faith is that there's a moment in which the individual telling me that story realizes that what they're doing is actually not only fulfilling who God created them to be, but also is a kind of revelation about the world, about themselves, about the journey they're on.

Is there a moment in your life where you realized that you're being faithful to yourself was a kind of God moment in your life?

- Yeah, I think that all trans people believe in a higher power because you have to believe in what the end goal is of what your transition is, right?

So for me, and again, we're talking about years ago, and though things are not completely changed, the statistics of what LGBT youth go through, now you compartmentalize and add being trans youth to that, homelessness, mortality rates, not having access at shelter systems, not having access to employment, healthcare that's affirming.

We are lucky here in Michigan that we are able to get a name change, a gender marker change, and a birth certificate.

Most states don't even allow that.

We're looking at Kansas now reversing that for their trans residents.

So I think for myself, the revelation came when I knew that being my authentic self came with a privilege that I was going to lose now 'cause now the world doesn't see me as an effeminate male, they see me as a trans woman of color, and that I was going to have to experience hardship, homelessness, not access to all of these things, and organizations now that pay me top dollar to do cultural competency and change their policies were the same organizations, shelter systems, and homeless places that were telling me no, no, no, no, no, back then because they had never helped a trans person, didn't know how to do it and didn't want to, especially if they were faith-based, have the issues of what comes from mumblings of other people.

Instead of educating them, they would prefer just to shy away and send you back to the street.

And I think that's when it was for me, when I knew that I was prepared to be homeless and experience all those things to be my authentic self.

- You obviously are doing incredibly important work in Detroit with the prosecutor's office for Wayne County.

Can you say a little bit more about your story?

- Yeah, so I relocated to Michigan about 13 years ago.

I moved to the Palmer Park area, which is really big for the trans community.

Unfortunately, at that time, they did not have protections.

There was an influx of trans women of color being murdered, our prosecutor, Kym Worthy, and our now Attorney General, Dana Nessel, were putting together a task force to combat crimes against the LGBT community, specifically trans women that were murdered.

That turned into the Fair Michigan Justice Project that now has dismantled, but I am the LGBT community engagement liaison for the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office and the Special Victims Unit.

So we still combat crimes against the LGBT community.

We've done 78 capital cases with 100% conviction rate.

We are the first in the nation to have a trans inclusion policy, which has been adapted by Oakland County, Washtenaw County, Ingham County, St.

Paul Minnesota, Nashville Tennessee, and DeKalb County, Georgia.

Through that work, I do a name change program where I've helped over 800 trans individuals out of Wayne, Oakland, McComb, and Washtenaw change their gender markers and birth certificates with no cost to them.

Through that work, trans women of color, because of the disparities, and until we got Elliott-Larsen amended, cannot get their name changed 'cause they had low level nonviolent offenses.

So I had a partnership that originally started with the University of Michigan where we helped eradicate those low level nonviolent offenses so that they can go through the name change process and have a better quality of life.

And then I go to police departments, and jails and train them on cultural competency and the work that I do so that we can change policies for my community.

And then I am the first and only national trans woman of color that can testify as an expert witness on social determinants of health in transgender violence.

Being trans, just the marginalization and the discrimination that trans people face, particularly trans people of color.

So if we talk about statistics and numbers, 60% experience homelessness, 40% are unemployed.

2023, Governor Gretchen Whitmer amended Elliott-Larsen.

What that means is adding gender identity and sexual orientation into our protections.

So if you were to go to an establishment and they were to say, "I'm not gonna serve you 'cause you're white, I'm not gonna serve you 'cause you're a female," those were under our protections and you can civilly sue them and hold them accountable.

As opposed to a trans person, they can say, "I don't wanna serve you," and you would have to leave their business.

If something happened and the paramedics came back then and said, "For religious reasons, I don't wanna touch her," we would unfortunately have to wait for somebody else.

Does that mean that people don't have biases and that the communities has completely changed?

No, but at least that means now that my community has the ability to civilly sue and have protections.

So that is what made me start doing this work for trans people because of the lack of resources and opportunities that they had.

- When you are there working with the police rather than having the police as your adversary, or when you're helping the system that was so constructed to marginalize trans women and trans men, when you are working to change that system, do you feel like you're on a mission?

Do you feel God's presence when you're with a family and you are helping them achieve vindication in the law?

- Every day.

When you're a trans child, when you're a child period, you don't realize how cruel the world is or the things that you'll have to face.

So like any other child, I had dreams of what I wanted to be as an adult, and it was not a trans advocate, if I'm gonna be honest.

Those dreams were a flight attendant, and anything into fashion, and clothes, and styling.

And because of the disparities and the social determinants of health that I went through myself, I started advocating for myself because I wanted a different life.

In doing that, because I just have always naturally been outspoken, I became this national advocate for other people.

And it wasn't until recently that as a trans person, you always question why are you here?

Life is so hard, people don't respect me, don't validate me, don't see it.

And like I stated earlier, I know now that this is my mission and this is why I'm here.

I'm getting emotional.

- It's okay.

- And I don't wanna leave anytime soon because I feel like I still have much more to accomplish, but we don't know when our expiration date is.

And if I were to leave tomorrow, I know that I have genuinely fulfilled something for my people, and that brings me joy because I know the change that I've done for so many people here in Michigan to have a better quality of life.

(dramatic music) - That will do it for this week's show.

Thank you for watching.

Head to the "One Detroit" website for all the stories we're working on, follow us on social media, and check us out on the PBS app.

(dramatic music) - [Announcer One] This program is made possible in part by Lilly Endowment, and Christchurch Cranbrook.

Across our MASCO family of companies, our goal is to deliver better living possibilities and make positive changes in the neighborhoods where we live, work, and do business.

Masco, a Michigan company since 1929.

Support also provided by the Cynthia and Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit PBS.

- [Announcer Two] The DTE Foundation is a proud sponsor of Detroit PBS.

Through our giving, we are committed to meeting the needs of the communities we serve statewide, to help ensure a bright and thriving future for all.

Learn more at dtefoundation.com.

- [Announcer One] Nissan Foundation, and viewers like you.

(upbeat music) (dramatic music)