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SPEAKER_00: So there were many things, you know, being thrown out of college, always having to hide who you were. It got me so damn angry that one night when I arrived in Los Angeles, California, it was the first night I arrived, I wrote Angry Athos.
SPEAKER_03: Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan, and this is Womanica. We're celebrating Pride Month with icons, supreme queens of queer culture. Some are household names, others are a little more behind the scenes. All of these people have defied social norms and influenced generations of people to be unapologetically themselves. Today we're talking about a folk singer-songwriter who made significant contributions to the women's music movement through her unwavering commitment to living authentically and openly. Let's talk about Maxine Feldman. Maxine also went by Max, and later in life, she used both masculine and feminine gender pronouns interchangeably. So we'll be doing the same throughout this episode. Max was born on December 26, 1944, in Brooklyn, New York. When Max was about six years old, the Feldman family moved to Manhattan, and a couple of coincidences destined Max to become a performer. It just so happened Max's family moved to the same Manhattan apartment building as a child actor from a popular 1950s TV show. That spawned an idea. Max begged her parents to let her take acting lessons. They signed her up for classes in the hopes that it would help get rid of Max's stutter. Max spent the next couple of years learning how to sing, act, and dance. These were some of the happiest years of her life. She was eager to perform at any opportunity. She even got a small part as a Girl Scout on the TV show The Goldbergs. The training paid off. Max earned an audition to attend the High School of Performing Arts. By this point, Max's family had relocated to Queens, but Max commuted from Queens to Manhattan every day to pursue his passion. On the weekends, he performed professionally in children's theater. After high school, Max continued her performing arts career at Emerson College in Boston. That came to a screeching halt when school administrators found out about her sexuality. Max was a proudly out lesbian, and when school administrators found out, they kicked her out of school. They told her she couldn't return until she went through a year of conversion therapy. Max's parents forced her into electroshock therapy. Max obliged until he couldn't take it anymore. This caused an irreparable rift between him and his parents. Max sought refuge in Boston's folk music scene. In 1963, he joined the Boston Coffee House Circuit. He performed at music clubs and coffee shops and emceed events around town. Once again, Max's sexuality was an issue. When someone in the folk scene started telling venues Max was a lesbian, she began losing gigs. Eventually, she was blackballed from the circuit for fear of bringing around the wrong people. For the next few years, Max supported herself by working at a bookshop, a department store, and a local bar. In May of 1969, Max got on a plane destined for Los Angeles. On the night of his arrival, Max wrote Angry Athos, the song that would become the first anthem of the lesbian and gay liberation movement. Max was filled with emotion, mostly rage, and the lyrics just poured out of him.
SPEAKER_00: I hate not being able to hold my lover's hand.
SPEAKER_03: I hate to tell my love. Max was angry about the treatment of queer people. He was sick of the police raids on gay bars, tired of not being able to hold his partner's hand in public, pissed he was thrown out of college, and was done living in the shadow of fear. To finish her education, Max enrolled at El Camino College. She helped found a women's center there. Around 1970, feminist and lesbian comedy duo Robin Tyler and Patti Harrison performed at the school. After the show, Max sang Angry Athos for them. The duo was so moved by the song that it exuded pride in being a lesbian that they invited Max to join them on their tour. Audiences full of lesbian women ate it up. For the first time, they felt seen. In 1972, Robin and Patti helped Max produce and distribute the song Angry Athos. It was considered the first out lesbian record. Around the same time, the public conversation was opening up to women's issues. Ms. Magazine put out its first edition in 1972, and Max's music helped kick off the women's music movement. In 1976, Max wrote the song Amazon. It became the lesbian anthem that opens the Michigan Women's Music Festival every year. Max also became a regular at the festival. For 15 years, she emceed and greeted the crowd with a resounding welcome women. In 1979, Max released her only full-length album, Closet Sale. She combined a sense of humor with her anger toward society's treatment of queer people to create a powerful record for gay and lesbian liberation. Despite Max's passion for performing, it barely paid the bills. She supplemented her income with stand-up comedy. She loved to make people laugh. Max found moderate success on the college and coffeehouse circuit. But still, being an out lesbian limited her as a performer. According to Max's partner, Max wasn't deterred. Max's partner remembers Max saying, "'To hell with that. "'I'm going to do it anyway. "'It's important.'" And that's exactly what she did. In the 1980s, when she wasn't performing, Max was running the Oasis Coffeehouse in Boston. She returned to the place that had rejected her to create a safe haven for those like her. She mentored female performers and embraced and empowered her lesbian clientele. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the lesbian community toward Max. As a self-proclaimed big, loud Jewish butch lesbian, Max didn't always feel the support of that community. He felt his masculinity resonated more with gay men than lesbian women. Max also struggled internally with his identity. He felt more gender fluid, and in later years, he identified as a transgender butch lesbian. When Max embraced his transgender identity, his partner said he found, quote, "'The validation and support for his masculinity "'that had been missing all his life. "'It was a great thing and a comfort.'" By the 1990s, Max's health problems meant she had to stop performing. In 1999, she moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and lived there for the rest of her life. Max Feldman passed away on August 17th, 2007, in Albuquerque. She was 62 years old. All month, we're talking about icons. For more information, find us on Facebook and Instagram at Womanica Podcast. Special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co-creator. Talk to you tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: Just wanna hear my lover's laughter.
SPEAKER_07: Feel like we're in a moment, can't you? And have you seen the light? Evidence-wise, we had virtually no evidence.
SPEAKER_04: In 1995, Detective Tony Richardson was trying to figure out who killed a fellow officer. The case comes down to who is believed and who is ignored.
SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness, we did convict an innocent man.
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