Dante “Tex” Gill

Welcome to the seedy underbelly of Pittsburgh, where the battle for control over the sex trade turned into an all-out gang war. Caught in the middle: A trans horse riding instructor who turned to a life of crime when he needed money to care for his ailing mother. S.A. Chant joins us today for a conversation about money laundering through paint-your-own ceramics, fighting the cops with birthday cake, and the way respectability politics changes the stories we tell about queer history.

Many thanks to S.A. Chant for being our guest host on this episode. You can find S.A.’s work here:

Featured image: A portrait of Dante (Image source)

One of Dante’s massage parlors, the Roman V, photographed in 1985. (Image source)

FBI surveillance photo of John LaRocca in 1975. (Image source)

Dante with his wife, Cynthia Bruno Gill, in 1984. (Image source)

Dante with friends in 1979. The person on the left is his friend Frank. (Image source)

Dante hides his face with a box as he’s escorted from court in 1979. (Image source)

Sources

Sources about Dante

Sources about other criminal history

About Rub and Tug