Deborah Moncrief Bell Reflects on Decades in Houston LGBTQ Media

It’s been nearly 50 years since Houston LGBTQ media personality Deborah Moncrief Bell began what has been a labor of love for decades. Bell, who identifies as a bisexual lesbian, has evolved with the times, working with such media as printed newsletters, radio, newspapers, an Internet listserv, and podcasts.  She is currently a producer and co-host of the long-running Queer Voices radio show and podcast.   

Newsletters

Bell attended the 1977 National Women’s Conference, held in Houston, and was so impressed that she volunteered to work with the newsletter for the local chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW). She contributed by writing, drawing, and doing pasteups.     

Around 1982, Bell volunteered to be the editor of The Wand, the publication of WomynSpace, a local nonprofit organization for and by women. The monthly publication listed WomynSpace activities and served as a networking directory. She remained the editor until the organization shuttered ten years later.   

Learning Radio on the Job

After Bell’s guest appearance on Wilde ‘N Stein, KPFT’s regularly scheduled gay and lesbian show, Jack Valinski, who worked with the show, asked Bell to consider becoming a member of the show’s volunteer crew. “It’s Wilde ’N Stein,” he told her, “but we don’t have a Stein.” Bell accepted and began learning about radio work on the job.       

“We were kind of rarefied, in the sense that we talked about what we wanted to talk about. KPFT gave us a forum to be voices for the community and talk about what was going on in the community,” says Bell. “And I laugh because sometimes Jack and I would sit there and look at each other wondering what we were going to talk about. Somehow, we found a way. We used to be the only game in town, and now with podcasts, there is so much more out there—and more people that are out and being visible.”

Wild ’N Stein changed broadcast schedules over the years, and the length of the show changed. When Bell started, it was two hours on Friday nights. “It was great,” she says. “We would do the radio show and then go out to eat. It was a lot of good energy, and many different people were involved over the years.”

In the 1990s, the show was taken off the air, but a large protest resulted in the program being renewed, but with a new name: Lesbian & Gay Voices. Later, the name morphed into Queer Voices. 

“The COVID pandemic caused us to make changes in order to produce a show, and also because KPFT didn’t have a physical location for a while. We figured out how to do it on Zoom. After COVID, we pretty much liked the way we were doing it. It made it a lot more convenient for us, and a lot easier to be having guests that were maybe elsewhere in the country or even in another country,” Bell notes.    

“We have become more diverse in ages, ethnicities, and gender identity,” she continues, “but there is still a group of people that just are so unknowledgeable about transgender people. I feel so lucky to be working in the gay media, because you know this stuff is like, What’s the issue here? It’s not a big, complicated issue—they’re just people who want to live their lives. But disinformation has been put out there with all this talk about people letting kids mutilate their bodies.”

One of the regular Queer Voices hosts, Bryan Hlavinka, says, “Deborah Moncrief Bell is the reason I got involved with radio. The year was around 2008, and I did an interview on Queer Voices about the Bayou City Boys Club and their annual Jungle Party. The interview went well, and Deborah asked me if I would like to do radio on a regular basis. That was 17 years ago. Since that time, I have gotten to know Deborah and the passion she pours into each and every episode of the show.”

FEMNet

As the Internet began to grow in the late 1990s, Bell started a listserv called FEMNet, a local feminist online network. “It was a way to connect with the community and have a wider forum to let folks know about things that were going on in the women’s community—because we didn’t have Facebook then,” Bell remembers.

Another member of the community wanted to start a listserv for the Houston LGBTQ community to speed up communication among activists. He sought out Bell, and they initially met at House of Pies to discuss how to make the dream a reality. With Bell’s help, HANNet emerged and provided a central point of contact for the Houston community for the next five years, until Facebook became a more popular option.

Because of her far-ranging involvement in communications, Bell was chosen to be the editor of the Montrose Voice. She also served as editor of the Montrose Gem. Additionally, her writing has appeared in This Week in Texas, OutSmart, and the Texas Triangle. 

Special Moments

As Bell looks back over her years with Queer Voices, she remembers special guests like actor Leslie Jordan and singer Joan Jett. More recently, she had a great interview with longtime transgender activist Phyllis Frye, and authors Michael G. Long and Shea Tuttle who have written the new book Phyllis Frye and the Fight for Transgender Rights.

She also remembers interviewing Charles Busch about his 2023 memoir Leading Lady: A Memoir of a Most Unusual Boy, and actress Alexandria Billings, a trans woman in the cast of the Transparent series.  

Bell always invites the new Houston Pride grand marshals to the show. “They talk about the work they do in the community, and to me, I think they are a community of heroes—people who rise to the occasion,” says Bell. “I love to put the spotlight on them to hear what all is going on, and the courage that’s out there.” Bell is herself a former marshal, winning the Female-Identifying Marshal honor in 1997.

“What has meant the most to me over the years is meeting someone who tells me that they used to listen to me when they were a teenager,” says Bell. “They said they would be listening in their bedroom, and they felt great hearing people saying positive things about being queer.”

Dark Times

“We are living in traumatic times, and that’s even more reason for us to bring out our queer joy,” says Bell. The way we get through this is being in community and being joyful—doing what brings us joy.”

“Now we have different forms of LGBTQ media,” she continues, “and we are not only reporting the news, but we’re telling the stories of our lives. It’s not just current events, it’s the reality of our experience. There is that adage about singing to the choir, but sometimes the choir has to know that it’s in the right key.”

Bell is enthusiastic about the queer youth who are now becoming active in the media. “It’s important for us to spread our message, which ultimately is a message of love. We have such a rich and vibrant community. I’m excited about these other people coming in, especially the younger folks, some of whom have professional media experience. These younger people give me hope because they’re just so on it. They’re not going to put up with the bullshit. They are a new generation of folks who are going to amplify queer voices.”

Bell’s Pronoun

Bell smiles as she says her pronoun is “thegranddiva,” and she is sticking with it. She has a grandchild who identifies as nonbinary. “They did an interview with me for a school project about what it is like to be queer in a red state.”

For her snail-mail correspondence, Bell has stockpiled a supply of the US postage stamp that commemorates the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution that was passed in 1920, giving women the right to vote. “My father was born that year,” says Bell.

Queer Voices provides information and entertainment for Houston’s LGBTQ community. It airs Wednesdays at 8 pm on 90.1FM KPFT and streams at kpft.org. At 9 pm it is available as a podcast on all audio platforms.