Wes Phelps Podcast Interviews Collection

About the Collection

This collection contains 20 recorded interviews, which were conducted between 2022-2023. Interviews were recorded for the purpose of being included in a narrative podcast series titled "Queering the Lone Star State: The Legal Battle for Equality in Texas." The podcast series utilized portions of the recorded interviews in this collections, however, this collection serves to preserve and provide access to the full interviews.

Scope and Contents of the Materials

The podcast series “Queering the Lone Star State: The Legal Battle for Equality in Texas,” illuminates the variety of ways queer Texans have used the judicial system to advance their rights since the late 1960s. The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas, which overturned the nation’s remaining state sodomy laws and removed the primary justification for continuing discrimination against gays and lesbians, is often remembered as if it came out of nowhere.

Interviews in this collection trace the longer history of legal activism in the state and uncover the forgotten episodes that made the Lawrence v. Texas decision possible. Relying on interviews with activists who were involved in these cases, attorneys who worked with them, journalists who reported on them, legal experts who have studied them, and historians who have written about them.