Is it true that most airline stewards are gay? Was it ever? How did their legal battles with airlines help advance gay rights and workplace gender equity? Is the tale of “Patient Zero” – a flight attendant accused of being the initial transcontinental spreader of HIV – accurate? Stow your tray tables and put your seats in their fully upright and locked positions for a quick flight through the history of airline flight attendants. Eric Jansen’s entertaining and talkative guest is Philadelphia University history professor Phil Tiemeyer, author of the intriguing book Plane Queer: Labor, Sexuality and AIDS in the history of male flight attendants, published by University of California Press. Broadcast 7pm July 31, 2014, on 91.7 FM Bay Area + www.kalw.org worldwide. (Slightly shorter version first aired May 16, 2013; rebroadcast 8/1/2013)
- Series: Podcast
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