This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Chris Lovito: It was the summer of 1976. It was August. I was down at the casino in Davis Park and I was hanging out with a friend of mine who had a boat, was kind of slow, and down there they didn't have DJs, we just had a jukebox. And he's like, let's get out of here, this is boring, let's go someplace. And I was like, where do you want to go? He goes, I'm going to take you to a place like it's another world. And I was like, okay. So we jumped on his 17-foot Invader with a 150 Black Max and we flew from Davis Park to the Pines. This is Chris Lovito, a self-described street kid from Long Island. At the time, Chris was just 16 years old.

[0:49] Chris Lovito: Back then it was a bar where the pavilion sat, it's called the Sandpiper. So we docked the boat and I don't see any girls, I only see guys. And I'm 16 years old and I'm like, okay, here we are, what is this place? And he goes, come on, come on, come on, let's go. So we walk into the Sandpiper and it was like a scene out of a movie, Al Pacino in the movie Cruising, the bar scene. We walk in and it was like all dudes, all like motorcycle vets, hats, beards, mustaches. And I turned and it was like this uncomfortable silence that it was like, who's this young kid coming in here? It was like all eyes on me.

[1:29] Chris Lovito: Chris went on to work as a bouncer at the Blue Whale and later became John White's right-hand man. John White was the entrepreneur who transformed the Fire Island Pines into a sophisticated gay destination in the 1960s. So we hung out, I don't know, maybe five minutes. It felt like an eternity. But there was something about it that I was just like, what is this place? It really was another world because it was completely contrary to being a straight kid from Blue Point. Chris's friend explained that the real vibe is at tea in the afternoon. They were there in the darkness of night.

[2:06] Chris Lovito: He says, okay, it's the night over here. What you have to do is come back to this thing called tea dance. It's music that you'll have never heard anyplace else. It's like going into a club at night that they play during the day and it's from like four to eight o'clock. So I was like, okay. And I was a clam digger at that time. And one day I took my boat, went back to the Pines, walked up on the beach. And I remember standing outside and listening and just hearing this beat and hearing this music that you didn't hear on the radio because it wasn't released yet. Chris later met his wife and raised two daughters in his dream home in the Pines. So yes, Chris remains heterosexual.

[2:50] Chris Lovito: The music, the place, the people, it was just wow. And I was still in high school. Next year it'll be 50 years that I'm there. And I never left. It was magic. Welcome to season two of Finding Fire Island. My name is Jess Rothschild. I'm a writer, producer and native New Yorker. This time we're taking a deeper look at the Fire Island Pines and we have a brand new cast of characters because the Pines isn't just a destination. It's a place where people arrive, shed their old lives and reinvent themselves.

[3:35] Jess Rothschild: Since the release of Finding Fire Island, I've spent a lot more time in the Pines and I realized what holds the Pines together isn't the party. It's the creativity of its people. The journey to the Pines begins the same way for everyone. You board a ferry and the city falls away. Self-service weakens. By the time the boat enters the harbor, you're already someplace else, a land of pure imagination. There are no cars, no streetlights, just skin, salt air and a boardwalk waiting for you to step off.

[4:12] Jess Rothschild: In the late 1980s, this stretch of water became its own kind of theater, a floating stage where the cast was always changing. Madonna, Liza, Andy Warhol. You see the commercial district, you see the pavilion, you see the blue whale, you see the grocery store, you're like, OK, 1, 2, 3, that's where I'm going to eat and party, that's where I'm going to party late night. But then when you step away from everything and you're swimming upstream to your ecosystem, to what you've rented, whether it's a big luxurious house or it's a little converted 50s bungalow, whether it's very minimalist or very hedonistic, it's like, OK, the adventure begins.

[4:52] Jess Rothschild: Within about 300 feet, you begin to understand the entire ecosystem of the Pines. People buying groceries in Advil at the Pines Pantry, housemates dressed on theme for tea, friends on a liquor shop run in just a speedo. It would be easy to think the Pines lives in these businesses, but it doesn't. The real Pines begins once you leave the harbor. I just thought it was so otherworldly and so glamorous and so close to New York City. And the fact that I didn't know that it existed, I thought was just amazing to me.

[5:24] Bob Howard: Bob Howard has been a pillar of the Pines community since 1975. Struck by its rustic, intimate charm, he started his real estate brokerage, which has been in business for 40 years. I came out for the day. I wasn't coming out for sex. I was just coming out for it. People do come to Fire Island for other reasons than just sex, not much. Maybe today people do because we've become like the punchline of a joke. When you say Fire Island, everybody thinks gay. All the Fire Island is not gay. Obviously, there's two communities that are gay, and the rest of it is like the rest of America.

[5:56] Bob Howard: The restaurants and businesses around the harbor have evolved over time. Many have burned to the ground at least once. It was very different than it is now. There was the Sandpiper when you came in, which was a little beach bar that had French doors, and it was like perfectly charming. There was a place called the Cultured Elephant, who knows why, that served seafood, shrimp in a basket, fried clams, stuff like that. Then there was this hotel, which was called the Boatel because there were boats nearby. That was it. That's all there was. It wasn't like any place else that had a big commercial district. It just was so otherworldly. Where can you go where there's boardwalks, there's no roads, where people take wagons to their house to move their stuff around? It was almost something that I could have designed for myself but didn't know existed.

[6:42] Bob Howard: The fact of the matter is that from that day on, I almost never left. It was exactly what I was looking for when I was traveling around the world and it was here all along. Gay summer spots like Fire Island and Provincetown are historically far-flung places. Therefore, the question of how to get to the Pines was pretty gatekept in the early days. You couldn't just Google it. As we all know today, it's a bit of planes, trains, and automobiles involving the Long Island Railroad, a shuttle to the ferry, and finally, the actual ferry.

[7:14] Bob Howard: Over time, this has been demystified, but back in the 50s and 60s, word traveled in underground gay circles. You start to see the energy of the ferry when you get to Penn Station and you see who's looking at all of the train announcements and you start to look around and you go, okay, I don't want to be judgmental but gay, gay, gay, gay, gay. And then you see Babylon pop up and everyone goes, we got to go. Everyone runs to the train. So you start seeing who's going to be on your ferry the minute you get to Penn Station. And then you see them transfer. And then you see them getting on the shuttle. And then when you go on the ferry, you're waiting. And you start to be very excited.

[8:00] Bob Howard: And then if you miss a ferry and you have to wait like that two-hour period for lunch, that close to two-hour period, you see gays get mad. You see gays cross their arms, stomping their feet. Poor little dogs are panting from the heat. I mean, you get to see some very frustrated gays. You get to see some melanin deficient gays get burned on the way. And that energy on the boat, my husband and I, we like to gauge if we're going to go on top of the boat or if we're going to be in the interior of the boat. That's like the first time before you get to the island whether or not you have to decide if you're top or bottom when you're on that ferry. And you kind of see people getting very excited. You see first timers that don't have enough luggage. You see people who were there all the time who feel like they brought their house. And you just get to see different takes on what it means to be gay and queer.

[8:49] Kyle Merker: Something that's defined the culture of Fire Island is the concept of living in a summer share house. In the old days, you'd sign a lease on a two- or three-bedroom house from Memorial Day through Labor Day. Now, the idea of a share house has been well documented between MTV's The Real World and Bravo's Summer House. But on Fire Island, these are much more than a weekend crash pad. Houses stay together for years, if not decades. And unlike the Hamptons, for gay men of a certain era, this was the only place where they could be publicly themselves.

[9:23] Kyle Merker: It was 1983. And to share a room for every season, we each paid $1,100 for the entire season. The Pines had a different feel because you were there for a whole summer. And you had investment in the community. And you made friends that lasted you for years. I think people are starved for a sense of community. And if you're out there, you need to find your pack.

[9:53] Hal Hayes: So, one of the biggest cultural shifts, I think, in the Pines since I've been here is in the share culture. That's Pines architect Hal Hayes. Hal arrived in 1984, sharing a house in Cherry Grove, just one mile west. And that also partly related to what you can do online. Airbnb has really changed things. But in the early days when I came out here, we got a little studio apartment in a big old house in Cherry Grove that was carved into nine different apartments. We upgraded to the duplex three-bedroom on the second floor the next year and were there for three years. I would have happily stayed there probably forever. But one of my housemates wanted a pool. And the other one said, everybody that we want to date is in the Pines. So, instead of trudging through the meat rack every evening to tea and back, we moved to the Pines the next year.

[10:54] Hal Hayes: So how is a share house divided among friends? Two were single. They each had one bedroom upstairs. One was a couple, and they had the other bedroom upstairs. Then the bedroom that was on this floor was their guest room, and they would have different friends that would come out. Then downstairs, the little storage shed room underneath the utility room was where the house boy would be. That was what a share house was, and that was a high-functioning, high-end one. They had a house boy. They always had fabulous dinners. The house boy would do light cleaning and do some shopping and maybe prep some hors d'oeuvres, but was never allowed to cook the meals.

[11:34] Ben Rimalower: Have you ever had a house boy? In what sense? Ben Rimalower is a theater director and also a house mother for his group. That was, I think, in 2010, definitely something of a throwback. When we went to the beach, I felt like Cleopatra. There was this harem of boys setting up umbrellas and chairs and shaking cocktails. They did that stuff. They got us drugs that night. They did all kinds of things. It depended on what you needed.

[12:06] Ben Rimalower: I do wonder about some of those houses, though. I have those coffee table books, and I look through them, and you see just this glamorous life of Andy Warhol and Calvin Klein and David Geffen in the 70s, and I'm like, some of these places had one bathroom. What? My broke-ass roommates have to have their own en suite and a powder room to share. What is going on? I don't understand how the culture functioned.

[12:33] Grant Rutter: The schedule in the Pines is different in every house I've been in. That's Grant Rutter. I personally introduced Grant to the Pines a few years ago. He had recently moved to New York and was struggling to find his footing. I watched Grant fall instantly in love with the place. My very first year house, we would go to tea, and then we would always plan to have dinner around that 9-9:30 time, but by the time we got back, it was like 10:30. Then the house mother was very particular about dinner, and it took a long time. God bless him. The dinners were great, but we were sitting down to eat at 1:30 in the morning. We're on a schedule. We have places to go. The last time I ate was like 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and now it's 1:30 in the morning. I'm not going to complain because I'm not a cook. I'll be the one in the kitchen cleaning the dishes at 2:30, but I'm not cooking, so I'm not going to complain.

[13:28] Grant Rutter: The house mother's role is to secure the rental. You work with a broker, fill the house with friends, and make sure everyone pays their share. Ben joked that many house mothers share a common trait, a controlling nature, and a need to be in charge. I thought, why am I spending time in this house with other people's friends when I have all my own friends? I don't know that all of them want to do a share, but if I have a hundred friends, surely I can find four to share a house with me.

[14:02] Grant Rutter: It's just kind of if you take the initiative, if you build it, they will come. People living in tiny Manhattan apartments with even smaller kitchens also love an opportunity to play house, to cook and entertain at home. Our house mother took our dinners very seriously, and we were on a schedule, and we used a slow cooker. And that was loaded up in the morning and ready to go by 8 o'clock at night. And one day a housemate had to charge his computer and unplug the slow cooker. And as you can imagine, that did not go over well. There was yelling. It was very dramatic.

[14:42] Julio Torres: I had an instance where there were some guests that came and they brought some dogs with them and they brought one more dog than they should have. And it created a lot of drama and the house was divided. And I said, do not bother me. I am on vacation. I am not choosing a side in all of this mess. But it got heated. Aside from regular outings like tea and the Friday night underwear party, the Pines is also full of pool parties happening at any time of day. We always find out about parties magically. And some of us are put in the loop and some of us are not. And then we'll see people getting ready and they're putting on a costume. And I'm like, where the hell are you going? And some DC gays on the other side of the island are throwing a shark fin party.

And then I'm like, OK, well, how did I not know about this? So, you know, I don't know how people in the Pines find out about parties, but they all magically do. And they're all there. And usually there's maybe two or three competing parties and they're always very well attended. I don't know how people find out about these things. A lot of it is obviously word of mouth. I know there are like telegram channels, but there's no one place to find everything out. So Fire Island is really who, you know, and like it's a need to know basis.

[17:33] Mike Balaban: The Pines has always been a place where people can try on new versions of themselves. So I lived in a one bedroom for 350 dollars rent stabilized apartment on West 76th Street. And I worked at the time I joined Bankers Trust, a commercial bank training program. Back when I was 20, I was a young closeted guy breaking into finance. Everyone else in there were really preppy and conservative and straight. And you could not afford to be gay. I ultimately had a boss who I had an affair with before he was my boss at Lehman Brothers. And he was extremely rigid about you can't show anything. I was on his trading desk rotating through one day. And I happened to mention to someone when they said, well, what are you doing this week?

And we're doing this. I'm going to Fire Island thinking because there are 21 communities or so on Fire Island that they wouldn't know anything about me. And the guy who ran that desk who would become my boss, I said, never, ever mentioned Fire Island on the trading floor again. They're smarter than you think they are. They'll figure you out. And you cannot afford to let that happen. So from 1976 until 1999, when I basically left the investment banking world, I wouldn't risk the job. So for 23 years, I was closeted. In 76, I was intimidated by New York City, by the gay scene. I didn't know how I want to go in situations where that kind of outdoor sex or whatever happened. I would occasionally go out.

I mean, there was a bar called the Anvil, which was kind of dirty things going on and guys dancing on the bars. And I went there once and got so drunk and so horny that I did something with somebody in the back. But the problem I found is whenever I really did that, because I didn't know how to socialize, I could not afford to take a chance with my job. So I had no gay life. I had an occasional forays. Cut to 1980. I went to a Fire Island Sharathon event. Sharathons were held each spring at the Gay and Lesbian Center in the village where people came out in person to review floor plans and meet potential housemates. And that's when I experienced everything that Fire Island is known for.

[20:01] Mike Balaban: Talk to me about the share life back then. Well, you know, there were maybe 10 of us in this house. I didn't know any of them. I met them at some gathering. I didn't have gay friends. Remember, I'm just coming out. I didn't know the guys. I remember dancing at the Ice Palace, which was also the first time I took LSD. And so we'd go into the disco, Chris, my best friend and I, and we'd dance our asses off and get all sweaty. Acid makes you feel hot than cold and hungry than not. Your moods and feelings change so quickly. So I'm in the disco and I'm, Chris, I got to get out of here. I need some air. I'm burning up. So we go outside and we're cooling off and everything's great. And I would put my finger in his belt loop on his jeans and he'd lead me everywhere because I'm on acid and I'm afraid of getting left behind.

So when we left at five, five thirty in the morning, we go out to the deck of the Ice Palace. We start heading down the sidewalks in the direction of the pines. And as you know, you get to the end of the sidewalk and it drops off about three feet and suddenly there's sand and what ends up being the meat rack, which I'd never been in. And again, I'm high on acid. We jump into the sand. We start making our way through the meandering trails and we come upon a clearing where there are a gaggle of eight guys in a cornucopia of throbbing sex and they're blocking the pathway. So we kind of have to duck down underneath the branch to get around them. And there I am. And I'm on my haunches. Probably felt like five minutes just watching the sex take place in front of my eyes.

I got home at 6 a.m. and immediately woke my roommate to show him the meat rack. And I went in and I woke him up and I said, Jeff, get dressed. You got to come with me. I got to show you this. What? What? Well, he was a Midwestern boy from Chicago. Never seen anything like that. Really innocent. So we got dressed. We raced down the boardwalk, drop off into the sand. We're in the meat rack. We come upon a clearing and we proceeded to have sex with each other in this coach athlete fantasy with my arms hung up against the trees like I was the athlete. And people surrounded us in a crowd. And somebody knelt in front of me just at the right or wrong moment and looked up and expected, I mean, go ahead. It's all yours. And so that was it. That was my one experience in life where I've ever done anything in public like that.

[22:43] Ron Martin: I arrived in New York City on a Wednesday in August of 1971. The biggest misconception about the pines was that it was just a place where everybody went to party and have a good time. I don't think people saw it as a community. It was our home. It was an extension maybe of our home in the city or wherever else we lived. And in some ways, some people considered it their primary residence. Sure, maybe they went to the parties and maybe they went out dancing Saturday, but there was a lot more to the pines than just sex, drugs and parties. I helped organize this single most influential event in the pines, Beach 79. We'll tell the entire story of Beach 79 later on. It was also where people put down roots to build a house, to share a house with a partner, with several people, to feel like they were part of a community that they were contributing to and building.

I always felt sorry for people who came to the pines as a visitor because I thought, wow, they kind of leave a little bit unimpressed because it's not obvious to you what to do once you get there. Most of the activities in the pines are centered around people's homes, their pools, the beach. There's not the usual kind of infrastructure that supports tourism or even people who come for the day, just day trippers very often don't come back a second time because there's really not much to do there. Even Provincetown has a lot more to do, but I was struck by the physical beauty of the place. It was so lush and green. So I started going to Fire Island two days after I arrived in New York City and continued going for the next 54 years.

[24:45] Grant Rutter: I think some people get it and some people don't because those that don't go in with certain expectations and they go in having heard that it's just like a sex fest and everything is so expensive and no one talks to anyone and it's so not true. Anyone that's interested in the pines, I tell them up front, it's a total choose your own adventure place. So don't be intimidated by anything you see online. Go and have your own experience. I like to be busy, but I also enjoy my sleep. I like to go to the beach, but I don't like to go in the ocean. I like to go into a beautiful hot tub to meet guys from around the world. But then also sometimes I just want to listen to some music and walk around with my AirPods in and just, you know, let everything fade behind me and go for a long walk to sail and back.

[25:30] Judson Morrow: There are two very common misconceptions about this place. One, money. It's just too expensive to penetrate. And second, those with money, well, they better be young, white and fit the brand of the pines. I feel like there are two varieties of folks who can jump the money wall. It is the beautiful and also the good time Charlies. The good time Charlies are like, do not give away your power. Like the good time Charlies are highly sought after. They're like fun. They're gregarious. They bring all their friends. If you don't have money, but you're a good time Charlie, you have a really great chance of jumping the money wall. And that's where I saw myself when I was in my 20s. At the time, I was like 5'10", 140 pounds.

I don't have a lot of muscle. I don't have a big dick. I wasn't the thing that we emphasize as beautiful, but I was really fun to have around. And I think that's what got me invited to things. And we always behaved really well. And I was always down. I mean, I was also down to do whatever, like whatever it was.

[26:54] Judson Morrow: Fire Island is one of the few places where different generations of gay people are naturally socializing in the same place. Gays in their 30s do want to learn from the generations that came before them. And these friendships can open doors. You know, older gay men seeking the company of younger gay men is a tale as old as time. And I think the paywall exists in all metropolitan areas. It's just as really heightened on the pines. What I don't want anyone to feel is like, well, I don't have money. I'm not beautiful. I don't do drugs and alcohol is to feel like there's not a place for you. I absolutely feel like Fire Island Pines, it is a do not miss opportunity. It's just really expensive. And I feel like for you to have the best time, if it's your first time, like go with friends because you'll feel confident, you'll feel comfortable.

That way you'll probably meet people. It might be easier to find a place to stay. While all of these things are true, like the age gaps and the money and the drugs and the beauty, like all of that is true. And it's a really great place for gay people.

[28:06] Varun Rampersad: So from a demographic perspective, as an Indian man, I was the minority everywhere I went. After 10 years of shares, I purchased a pines home in 2012. When I came to Fire Island in 1997, it was 99% white. It was probably 0.5% black and maybe one or two Far East Asians. I didn't see any other Indian guys for several years. But that actually didn't surprise me because the Gay New York Society, which was really a feeder for the Pines, that was the demographic too. Very largely, you know, cisgendered white males, a few black people, a few Asian, but overwhelmingly white. Over the course of the years, and it's been a long time, 27 years I've been in the Pines, like America, the Pines has gotten a little bit darker, little bit browner.

We've had more black people, we've had more Asian people, we've had more Indian people coming to the Pines. And that just reflects what New York and all of America is looking like. So over the course of time, I've noticed more. And candidly, when you're a minority and you see another minority, there's a natural inclination to at least say hello and make the connection.

[29:24] Jay Jurden: And so fast forward to the summer of 2025, I'm at T and I meet five other Indian guys and we all start talking about being Indians in the Pines. I've been very happy to see more Black and brown people every year, every time I go, because for a very long time it was very, very white. And so now you get to see a bit more color. And over the past two years, three years, I've also seen so many more trans women. I'm so happy about that. And so many more trans men and non-binary people and queer boys who are figuring out what their gender journey is. So that's been so good to see. Because essentially we are gay New Yorkers. Race is completely, you know, independent of anything. It doesn't matter to us.

It isn't what brings us together for the long term. It's what connected us, but not for the long term. So we're there chit chatting, having drinks and so we should get a picture, the Indians of the Pines. So we get the picture. They put me in the front. I said, why in the front? He said, because you could be our auntie. It's like, no, I don't think so. So yeah, over the course of time, the demographic has shifted. That's the natural evolution of the Pines, like the natural evolution of America. That said, I never once experienced a racially motivated incident. Did I meet some people I didn't like? Yes, but it was never a racial issue. Candidly, the Pines people were nothing but welcoming to me.

I have a huge number of friends. They're really smart, talented people, different religions, nowadays, different races, straight and gay. But they're all part of a Pine community that is very embracing. And I feel that every time I go there.

[31:11] Lori Schrader: You may be thinking, OK, well, where do I fit in if I'm a woman, gay, straight or trans? I've owned the iconic Pines Pantry for decades and have been there since I was a pantry girl working the cashier. Talk show icon Robin Bird is a fixture in the community. And then there are gay women like me who thrive here because they found community. It definitely makes me feel more powerful being a woman in the Pines. And I definitely feel like the superior sex when I'm there. I'm like the first one who's like, you know, sitting at the kitchen table like, how was your night? Almost like a mother figure. So I'm like, get up. We have to go set up the house. We have to go put up the DJ equipment. I'm putting the playlist on. You don't get access to the playlist like no one wants to hear Goat Throat by freaking Kim Petras a thousand times. That's what I feel like.

[32:12] Fran Tirado: So obviously, the Pines has a bit of a reputation of being the kind of like uns gay guy party space, which obviously has its truths. The Doll Invasion is a festival I founded to bring trans people to the Pines for free. But the very, very first time I came to the island, I just remember being totally turned around. And I was like, wait, this was the Fire Island that everyone was talking about? Because I remember just walking onto the island and seeing how lush and green and beautiful it was with a family of deer walking in front of you and a very kind of, for lack of a better word, provincial kind of town run by a small group of people and everything's made of unfinished wood. Like it's so romantic.

Like I felt like I had found Narnia, you know what I mean? Like this kind of like faggot Narnia. And I mean, you can go back as far as the 1920s earlier, even if you wanted to talk about like Oscar Wilde. Fire Island has this totally ethereal ancestry of queer people coming there for reprieve, respite, coming there as a solace from a generation of men dying from AIDS. It is manicured to perfection. Its architecture is like divine. And that is all a product of the gay imagination. And I feel very much so in the lineage of that. I feel inspired by what has been done on the island and how the kind of spirit of it really invites you to create your own magic or to find your own magic in it.

[34:01] Fran Tirado: Fran is proof that you can step into history and then create your own legacy within it. In the lore of the very first invasion, Terry and Pansy, you know, getting their girls together, getting in full geish and like descending on a restaurant in the Pines because one of them was kicked out for being a crossdresser. I think my favorite kind of images really are the ones where someone who's like really not invited, like shows all the way up and looks amazing and takes up a lot of space. Like there's like man spreading and there's like queer spreading. And like that to me was like what it was. And of course, 50 something years later, drag queens are not stigmatized in the same way they might have been in the 70s. And in the 70s, the cultural imagination of trans woman versus crossdresser versus drag queen versus, you know, they were all conflated to the same thing at that time.

And a drag queen very well could have basically the same kind of standing in society as a trans woman. Now we are at this place where I see obviously drag queens as the icons and arbiters amongst Fire Island culture. Trans women, trans people don't have the same kind of standing. And so I was like, oh, there should be a Doll Invasion. Because the reality is the primary reasons that somebody that doesn't feel like Fire Island belongs to them or feels too intimidated to make a Fire Island trip, the average person who's deciding not to come is because they have not been invited. All it takes is an invitation. And Doll Invasion is a radical invitation.

[36:49] Cody Rigsby: Now in its fourth year, the Doll Invasion is a weekend-long festival with performances and parties, all of which raise money for trans organizations. The pantry girls were like, we've never seen a weekend here where for three days, the demographic of the island shifts, like out on the boardwalk, buying things in the pantry, on the beach. We are seeing overwhelming amounts of people that are as represented as gay men, but are not cis gay men. And that to me is a big part of the vision. Many of the people I spoke to for season two mentioned the Doll Invasion as one of their highlights of summer, including Peloton star and dancer Cody Rigsby. Our trans brothers and sisters from all walks of life come to the island for this like big party of just like debauchery, but also like gender expression and all that.

And listen, I'm a gay white man. I'm not always introduced to other parts of the community. So I love seeing that part of the community there and having their moment and the music is so good. They've had great performances. The vibes are fantastic. And also just so interesting because the way that people express their gender is so varied. And even as a gay man, your brain is still like breaking down all these norms in your head that you think of. And so even someone who's in the community, I'm confronted with my own internalized homophobia or transphobia or whatever it is. And I'm like working through that in real time, even being in those spaces where you're like, why am I thinking that? Or like, why am I jarred by the way that someone's presenting themselves?

Like, especially in a community where you're supposed to be free and doing your own thing. But I also remember that I'm a guest. I'm not the main character and they're being kind enough to allow us into that space. Does that make sense? Like you're a guest, act accordingly.

[38:01] Jay Jordan: So there's a lot of people that will hear about Doll Invasion or see the poster for Doll Invasion or see photos online of Doll Invasion. And you know, the next time Doll Invasion comes around, they might want to come and they think, oh no, that space is not for me. Doll Invasion rests on a foundation of coalition building. We need allies and cis people in that space. I know that sounds crazy, but it actually, to me, sets it apart from other trans-focused parties. The event is actually for everyone, period.

[39:01] Jay Jordan: I think that so many of these white boys are happy because for every couple of white boys who are kind of like, oh, there are a bunch of girls here. I think there are so many more who are like, thank God we got some girls in here because y'all were being so boring talking about your creative director jobs at whatever company you work for. I think that a lot of these gay boys are happy that the party has gotten more interesting. It is so important actually to not stay in our silos for cis gay men to stay in their silo, for like lesbians to stay in their silos, for trans people to be all the way over here in a silo. It's just not how we're ever able to build power. So part of my theory of change in this is that guys and dolls have so much more in common than they think sometimes.

And yet we've been sold on a story that we're nothing alike or that we're nemeses or that it's us versus them or like what have you. It's just not how I roll. And my hope is that, I mean, this is exactly what Cody was saying. My hope is that when allies come into this space, because we really want them there, we need them there, this is for them, that they not only feel welcome, but that they kind of realize that trans people are more than a cause. We're fabulous artists. We are inventive beyond belief. And if you come into our world, even for just one day, you might realize what we have in common. And you also might realize that this is the best party you've been to on the island in maybe since ever. We do kind of throw the best party, no shade.

[40:21] Ben Rimalower: One thing that I have discovered in the last couple of years is 12-step meetings on the Pines, which in the early part of my recovery, 15 years ago, when I was going to meetings a lot in the city, the gay meetings in the city always felt to me like going to a gay bar, like a networking thing. I really enjoy going to the ones in the Pines. It's just a different cross-section of the community and a great way to meet people otherwise. There's more of a sense that everybody's already connected. You know, it reminds me of the way I felt when I was in rehab, where we were sort of all in this whole encampment together. In a sense, the Pines is my rehab now.

[41:11] Chris Lovito: And as for Chris Lovito, the hetero clam digger who found himself here in 1976, finding Fire Island set his life in motion. This was the beginning of disco before anything really hit the radios. We got all the stuff first. When I was working there, I would carry the boxes of records that would test records that didn't even have labels on them. They just had handwriting on the outside jacket or on the inside record. And we were the testing ground for the music. So if you wanted to hear something first, that's where you went. Extended play song and stuff. And even the guy who worked there, he created the extended remix that was created on Fire Island. And a couple of my friends have original tapes.

And that's the beauty and the magic of that place is that it was happening there first. And walking up on that deck, it became an addiction to what was going to happen. You never knew what was going to happen. You didn't know what celebrity was going to walk in. You didn't know what famous person was going to walk in and out, what supermodel was going to be discovered or not discovered, what people were going to go there. It was a place to go see and be seen. Fire Island has opened me up in many different ways. And I've had a lot of fresh, new, and exciting experiences there. But it's also a great environment because you are not judged for whatever you want to do. And I'm not necessarily saying it's encouraged, but you do you and have fun. And it is a nurturing environment for that to try new things. And I appreciate that because it helps solidify my sexual identity.

[43:40] Chris Lovito: I remember that for summer, I brought Grant to the Pines. Walking him back to the ferry, he started to cry. The trips back to the city on that ferry, I'm always very emotionally raw. For me, I look at the Pines as a refuge from stress, from work and from life. So when I have to go back to that after the time I've had, I'm never prepared. It wrecks me almost every time. And I recognize that that is a place that's really important to me as a person, as a man. And I don't have that same freedom in real life because of the constraints of work and rent and the commuting and the train and all these things. So when I'm there, I can strip all that away. And it's really hard to step away from that. It is emotional because it's never enough time.

[43:54] Jess Rothschild: Finding Fire Island is created, executive produced, and narrated by Jess Rothschild. Watch all episodes on YouTube. And if you're enjoying the series, don't miss season one. This series is co-produced with the Pines Historical Society. Sound design by Caitlin White. Video editing by Evelyn Darr. With special thanks to the Pines Foundation and SAGE.