“Even though I’m talking about my history, there’s so many more out there that are my history. It’s our history.”

The Stonewall Inn was a dump.

This is according to Jay Toole, a veteran of the now mythical uprising. “It was dark, smelly. You never drank any mixed drinks there ever because they hardly had any running water, so glasses were always washed in dirty water.”

Toole was living nearby in Washington Square Park after her parents threw her out of the house at the age of 13. She and the others who were sleeping there heard what was going and rushed over, beginning “one of the best nights I’ve ever had,” she says. “It felt so empowering to be able to yell at a cop and not get beat up…Just to yell at them and scream at them and throw things at them and see them scared. You could see it in their eyes that they were scared. And it must have surprised them that they were scared of a bunch of gay people, like ‘What the hell?'”

While living in the park as a teen, Toole dated a girl, Linda. She’d come into the park and Toole would make sure to “let the other butches know, ‘She’s mine.'” They dated and Toole quickly fell in love with her, even buying her a ring, but they lost touch after Linda’s parents had her put away for being a “wayward girl.” Their love story ended there, at least for the next 55 years. Then 2019 came around and Linda reconnected with Toole over email after seeing her in a video online commemorating the 50th anniversary of Stonewall. “I got on a plane and went to Florida so fast to see her that it made my head spin. And now she’s back up here in New York with me and now we’re snowbirds.”

On this week’s episode of LGBTQ&A, Jay Toole talks about reuniting with Linda after 55-years apart, surviving on the streets of New York City for over 25 years, and the Stonewall Uprising.

“Even though I’m talking about my history, there’s so many more out there that are my history. It’s our history.”

You can read an excerpt below and listen to the full interview on Apple Podcasts.

Jay Toole describes the night of the Stonewall uprising:

Oh my God, the streets were just yelling. It felt so empowering to be able to yell at a cop and not get beat up. And a lot of people did get beat up that night, but just to yell at them and scream at them and throw things at them and see them scared. You could see it in their eyes that they were scared. And it must have surprised them that they were scared of a bunch of gay people, like “What the hell?”

I think it was one of the best nights I’ve ever had when it came to doing things like that. And I look back on it for that one little moment, even though we didn’t like each other or get along with each other maybe, that one moment in time, we all came together, all of us came together to say, “Enough is enough. You got to stop. You have to stop beating us. You have to stop arresting us. You just have to stop and let us live.”

Again, being homeless and an addict, every day we were fighting for our lives with the cops. Most of my ribs have been broken multiple times by cops and fighting for who I believed in, which was myself, “This is who I am. I’m not going to change.”

Listen to the full podcast interview on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

LGBTQ&A is a weekly LGBTQ+ interview podcast hosted by Jeffrey Masters. Past guests include Pete Buttigieg, Laverne Cox, Roxane Gay, and Miss Major Griffin Gracy.

New episodes come out every Tuesday.